The digital revolution is increasingly leading to cooperation and collaborations at the C-Level. More and more, Chief Marketing Officers are now spending their working days looking at big data analytics. But it shouldn’t be taken for granted that the marketer’s job is to know the customer – and knowing the customer in today’s digital era means understanding and applying analytics.
Analytics is now the focal point for marketers to make sense of the huge amount of digital content consumers are sharing about themselves. In a world increasingly defined by digital actions, analytics turns data into insights that would inform effective competitive strategy.
This wasn’t the case several years ago when analytics was regarded as some secret science understood only by technologists. Organizations are now making that shift where the Chief Information Officers and Chief Marketing Officers are collaborating to ensure that technology aids marketing and allows marketing professionals to get even closer to the customer enabling they to know more about audiences than ever before, with pinpoint precision.
Marketing has always been based on a few core principles: understanding customers, meeting their needs, and doing so in a way that builds trust. In the age of the digitally empowered customer, marketers still face the same questions of how to accomplish these goals. Analytics is helping them answer those questions effectively and efficiently.
And because of so many new insights that can be gleaned from analytics, the CMO’s role is evolving and a closer relationship being established with CIOs. CMOs are now being held accountable for business results tied to technology investments, and for driving long-term growth beyond near-term marketing campaigns. As more marketing campaigns embrace social, digital and mobile channels, interaction with technology is far greater than ever before, meaning that the CMO and CIO can no longer afford to act in isolation.
The marketer’s job is no longer “just marketing”. It is understanding customers and ensuring that their experience – including what kinds of products and services offered, how they are promoted, where and when they are available – all meet consumers’ expectations in line with the brand experience.
Analytics is helping marketers meet their responsibilities in so many ways.
