Overcoming data limitations

Sustainable business growth driven by big data and frictionless digital customer experience. This is fast becoming an essential requirement for organizations across the world. However, getting there can seem like a daunting task. It doesn’t help that many organizations are still struggling with data. Too much of it, or too little of it. Silos that complicate effective distillation. Systems and process incapable of extracting any measurable vale from the data.

To get from point A—the tangle of data as it exists in the organization—to point B—continuous growth paired with effective marketing transformation—is a must. But how?

With marketing automation solutions, a primary function of which lies in the resolving of the aforementioned data predicament. Data-focused systems, like a CDP, or integrated marketing automation solutions with a robust data core always start by consolidating, validating, and cleansing all the data from various to a single place. The goal here is to give the data structure, to make it actionable—with minimal or no hurdles for the key steps that follow.

For most, just sorting through the data they do have is far from enough. They need to augment it, which means capturing additional attributes to enrich your understanding of an audience or object. This is, to be sure, a gradual process, one guided and managed by marketing automation solutions that can uncover and centralize those presently unavailable, but crucial data points over time. How do these solutions achieve this? They augment data by capturing new information from interactions across relevant channels and sources.

Turning digital footprints to insights that matter

It is no secret that consumers leave behind a trail of signals and insights waiting to be picked up and pieced together by brands. Still, the scale of this has exploded in the last few years, accelerated by technological advancements and global exigencies. The job of the marketer is of course to unify such footprints and use them to understand the customer behind it all—within regulatory boundaries, with consideration for the individual’s privacy, and for the purpose of delivering relevant experiences.

Audience identity resolution is an essential capability for all channels and systems. Because it helps organizations move past the collection and enrichment of data towards the individualization of insights. It tracks the unknown visitor’s path across digital touch points, maps out their evolution towards customer, and enables the creation of communications specific to different points of their journey.

Personalize to scale growth

So, how can organizations generate top-line impact out of all this? They need to utilize the data, with the help of marketing automaton systems, to send exactly the right communication for each customer at just the right time and place, all while facilitating their individual journeys by acting contextually and in real time. It doesn’t make sense for a recent college graduate to receive the same promotions and interactions as a retiree enjoying their time in a resort town.

Now with the data layer taken care of, organizations can delineate the diversity of audience groups relevant to their business growth. Using audience identity resolution, they can go even further, responding to preferences, inclinations, and patterns of individual customers, dynamically adjusting how they are engaged over time as they evolve in relation to marketing communications and relevant contexts.

All these insights, thanks to contemporary marketing automation, ought to be immediately translated to consistent, seamless engagement across touch points. This entails significant improvements in productivity, as much of the guesswork in digital marketing is eliminated while complicated tasks are automated and optimized for scale. In short, organizations will spend time creating, and benefiting from, communications that are more precisely targeted than ever before.

These benefits encompass reach, engagement, retention, and all the way to advocacy. They are the outcomes of the holistic approach towards marketing transformation that martech solutions have been embracing—and realizing for organizations worldwide. By uncovering audience intelligence across not only channels, but even business units or brands, certain solutions are enabling organizations to cross/up-sell much more effectively.

The path towards digital marketing transformation is a long one. It requires much planning, collaboration, and commitment. It demands organizations to shed dated processes, overcome challenges that are growing in scale by the day, and embrace a wider range of marketing possibilities. However, with the right marketing automation solution, this journey will be one they can walk with assurance.