The growth of digital channels has prompted marketers around the world to rethink the impact data has on the way they run their entire businesses by thinking about data in a more strategic manner.
This is according to Richard Mullins, director of Acceleration, who says South African companies serious about making a shift towards customer-focused marketing need to put in place systems and processes that will enable them to gather and make sense of unprecedented amounts of customer data being generated, in an integrated fashion.
"Knowing and understanding the audience is the key to successful customer engagement and data unlocks your knowledge of and insight into your audience," adds Mullins.
"For that reason, we're seeing organisations worldwide look closely at their customer data: what customer data they collect, where and how they collect it, and how they put it to work," says Mullins.
Most marketers have been gathering customer data from digital channels and tools for years, including their Web analytics, ad-serving, e-mail and search platforms. They used it for basic optimisation of their digital marketing, benefiting greatly from the measurability that digital channels offer in the process, notes Mullins.
He believes that marketers are now thinking about data in a deeper manner as they seek to develop more personalised and relevant engagements with their customers. They are seeking to integrate data from digital channels with data from point of sale, contact centre and customer relationship systems to get a more complete view of their customers.
"As you build a deeper understanding of the audience, so you become able to use each touch point and each piece of content to deliver more meaningful engagements and influence with your audience," says Mullins.
This means they need to put in place enterprise architectures that allow them to map out the sort of data they need to collect to meet their customer acquisition and retention goals, as well as the tools and technologies they will use to do so. "Marketers need to learn how to mine audience data across different channels and media," he adds.
"Companies that collect the cleanest, most relevant and most up-to-date audience data will be able to monetise this data and grow their revenues. Those that don't will start to pay a premium to third parties to access data about their own customers," concludes Mullins.
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