Ask any business marketer about the importance of data, and you’ll get plenty of good answers. “It’s essential,” they’ll say. “Data drives everything we do.” That’s a good thing, since marketers are under increasing pressure to manage, collect, and make use of data, according to a recent CMO Club/Gartner study. But in my experience, answers like this are just lip service. Most B2B marketers really struggle to get their arms around the reality of customer and prospect information. There are at least three obstacles standing in their way.
Of particular importance to data and data-driven marketing are these issues:
- Inattention to data and the database. While most senior marketers and other executives will pay lip service to the importance of customer information, it’s rare that they understand what is in their databases, and how to maintain and improve it consistently. Neither do they invest in the resources, human or otherwise, to manage the data properly. As noted by Derek Slayton, CMO of D&B/NetProspex, “even companies with data scientists on staff tend to ignore the nuts and bolts of minding the database itself. It’s like they have the back pain, but they aren’t doing the exercises that would keep the pain at a manageable level.”…
