Our continued thoughts on the great article from McKinsey that notes the importance of data driven marketing.
Extracting Meaningful Intelligence
Marketers today not only need to be able to plan for effective sales and marketing channel data integration, they also need a strategy in place to extract intelligence out of all this data they are now collecting and integrating.In the trenches, this change suggests a shift toward sophisticated data analytics. “Generating rich customer insights, always central to effective marketing efforts, is more challenging and important in today’s environment. Companies must listen constantly to consumers across all touch points, analyze and deduce patterns from their behavior, and respond quickly to signs of changing needs,” states the article. Duncan Watts of Yahoo! Research continues by saying, “Marketing is going to become a much more science-driven activity.”
In our experience, even some of leading marketing organizations have just begun to deal with the complex issues associated with sales, marketing and operational data integration, let alone getting to the point of being able to extract actionable intelligence out of this data. We advise a methodical approach to this challenge.
- Focus first on marketing goals and objectives
- Audit existing sales and marketing data channels
- Develop a channel integration roadmap that maps the infrastructure development back to the marketing goals.
The key to a successful marketing integration strategy is being able to effectively work with both the marketers and the technologist within an organization to bridge the divides. The challenge can certainly be met; it just needs to be approached in a manner that makes sense within the constraints of the organization and the various entities accountable for the success of the initiative.
What are others seeing out there?
Are you seeing that most organizations are still working on integration of just a few channels let alone full channel integration?
What interesting values are you see from sales and marketing channel integration?
Share your thoughts by Leaving a Comment!
Link to the “We are all marketers now” article from McKinsey.