Everyone’s talking about data.

I speak to heads of procurement, chief marketing officers, insight managers, IT leaders, technology vendors, digital & media agencies, and the list goes on. They all drop data into conversation.

However when the conversation goes to…

  1. what level of data has been identified in helping the business grow?
  2. how has data helped identify marketing spend that has delivered incremental sales?
  3. have you created a consolidated view of real world and digital data to help understand consumer insights and trends?

… the replies falter.

I see a lot of digital only data. And programmatic buys and consumer journeys that ignore offline activity and data captured (ie: from events, sponsorships, activations, workshops, point of sale etc).

I see a lot of consumer engagement data that shows the value of content and social media activity. However the analysis often ignores any consumer value in terms of a quality filter (ie: leads or sales).

I see a lot of data analysis reports that focus on silo activity only. The reports tend to represent a small % of the overall business and marketing activity. Hence skewing people’s conversation and time disproportionately to the business impact.

Solution

Over the past few months I have been working with a client to help them solve the above. Here’s a quick summary of how the project unfolded:

  1. identified the current state in terms of technology, ecosystem, data capture and overall marketing activity
  2. prioritised data sources based on a strategic measurement matrix
  3. allocated data sources to define a $ value (including retail and e-store)
  4. allocated data sources to build an engagement score at an individual consumer level (including product ratings reviews, competitions, email, website log in)
  5. removed non-impact data and focussed on the remaining 40% only (almost half a million records)
  6. identified the pareto principle (60%/15% in this case) and drivers of each value segment in terms of product category, product ownership, and repeat purchase cycles
  7. identified differentiated consumer segments and profiles in terms of attitudinal and demographic variables
  8. presented findings to executive leadership team
  9. approved and actioned within company

OK, still with me?

In short, we did some work over two months that a vendor had been unable to do over 18 months.

I’m not blowing my own trumpet here. Well maybe a quick toot.

But the point is that a lot of work can be done quickly and at relatively low cost to get a much clearer view of consumer activity. Without being blinded by technology, drowned in the latest and greatest digital buzzwords, or lost in data dead ends.

Free coffee?

If you’re undertaking a digital transformation, wanting to make better business sense of the mass of data that you collect, or simply want a chat about a smarter lifecycle marketing strategy, then I’d love to meet up.

Will it be with you?

I’ll shout the coffee.