Chief marketing officers and their entire marketing teams today are very data driven. Data collection and analysis plays a big part in daily marketing activities of successful marketers. IBM reports that 90% of the data in the world was created in just the last two years and each day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created.
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On top of that, enterprise data is expected to grow by 40 percent a year over the next decade, according to IDC analyst group. Most of the data is consumer-generated content. All of this content has brought about the data-driven marketer. It also makes it necessary for analyzing and deciphering all of that data. This is where media monitoring software comes in and plays an important role in aiding marketers.
Incorporating data into their roles is not a new skill for marketers; however the immense amount of data and analysis required learning a different and new set of skills for CMOs and their teams.
Not only do they need data to make decisions and formulate campaigns, but they also have to use the data to innovate strategy and drive revenue increases. Gartner’s survey of CMOs in 2015 revealed that marketers expect most of their decisions to be quantitatively driven by 2017; as a result, more than half of the companies surveyed plan to grow their analytics teams.
Many companies already have a Chief Information Officer (CIO) in place to help the CMO and marketing teams manage data and technical integration details while the marketing side focuses on using social to drive customer engagement and meet business objectives.
The CIO and CMO work in tandem to integrate and blend the two sides of data analysis and implementation. There is a need for this collaboration because the value of all this data reaches beyond the marketing team; all aspects of a company should be able to access and analyze data for their own specific needs.
Not only do they need data to make decisions and formulate campaigns, but they also have to use the data to innovate strategy and drive revenue increases.
Because of all this data, marketing is no longer based on assumptions; instead, marketing is now based on data. Even as recently as 5 or 10 years ago, marketers were partaking in the old style of “spray and pray” type campaigns, or even testing different marketing strategies based on ideas rather than data. Data has now become a central part of marketing because so much data is collected on a regular basis and is only increasing with the addition and growth of the Internet of Things industry and all of these new billions of connected devices collecting and reporting data.
In addition to needing to interpret data, the timeliness of the data is just as important as the data itself. Since our lives are so fast-paced, so are our wants and needs as consumers. This means that something that was important to your audience in the morning could be a thing of the past by dinner time. For these reasons, effective and quick analysis of data must be carried out, and data must be collected in real time.
Of course, trends over time can and should be looked at, but marketing teams must also be prepared for not only quick analysis but also quick reaction and implementation of the plan derived from the data. Media monitoring (online, social, and offline media monitoring) is the tool that helps the marketing CMOs and their teams collect this data and interpret it as quickly as needed.
