But despite all of its promise, a recent survey conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit (released last week by Lyris), indicates that 45% of marketing executives fail to use Big Data to understand consumers, and far fewer — just 24% — say that they always use data for actionable insight. What’s behind that data divide? Forty-five percent of the respondents pointed to limited data analysis competency as the culprit.
According to Janie Hulse, an editor with The EIU:

“The most surprising finding is that marketers have not responded more decisively to consumer dislike of superficial personalization. Consumers say they appreciate offers that are customized to their particular needs based on previous purchases, yet the transition to more sophisticated customization has been relatively slow and the majority of marketers continue to stress simple personalization.”

So if your personalization strategy still amounts to inserting “Hello [FirstName],” above your broadly segmented boilerplate, then it’s time start ratcheting things up a few notches. In fact, 70% of consumers call current personalization efforts “superficial,” and 63% believe that simple personalization is now so widespread that they’ve become numb to it. Even worse, nearly one in three consumers say that superficial personalization is among their biggest marketing-related pet peeves.
To unlock the hearts and minds of today’s consumers, contextual relevance is the key. You need to give them what they want, when and where they want it. And jumping on the Big Data bandwagon is the only viable way to get there.

But before you set out on the path to personalization, it’s critical to recognize and think about the Big Challenges associated with Big Data. Following are a few thoughts to start greasing those wheels:

• Dealing with Disparate Data Sources

Getting your hands on substantive and reliable customer data can be a trick and half, especially if it lives in data silos that are scattered all over the company. Integrating and unifying internal and third-party data to create highly detailed customer profiles is the ultimate goal, but baby steps are a good way to start…

Take any big, unstructured data source, for example — maybe a data set that doesn’t require integration because the data’s already in one place (transaction history, browsing behavior, social posts, location data, time, device usage, etc.). Use it to identify the most meaningful data signals and patterns that influence conversion, and consider ways to apply those insights in real time.

• Don’t Answer Questions that Nobody’s Asking

The bigger the haystack, the harder it is to find the needle. And if you’re not asking the right questions of your data – no matter how vast and voluminous it is — then the answers you get can point you to some very bad places. Look at Big Data as the Magic Mirror on the Wall and think long and hard about the customer-related questions you’d ask it.

• Avoid Paralysis by Analysis

Resist the urge to be paralyzed by data and focus on identifying the high-level signals that can be used to inform your personalization strategy.

On the flip side of this, too many companies don’t even take the time to assess the customer intelligence they already have. Many marketers don’t look at basic Web analytics and act on the stuff that’s right under their noses. Is your organization willing and able to make the changes needed to fix that? Who will be charged with turning insight into action? What structural or process-related changes will you have to make to get those things done?

• Acquire the Right Tools

In a lot of ways, Big Data is still a Big Baby. As it grows into toddlerhood and beyond, you’re going to need new tools to query and report on the data. The future of personalization is going to demand new data integration solutions, new querying tools, new reporting applications, new dashboards, and new metrics solutions that tie your data-driven decisioning processes back to campaign performance and revenue generation. Spend some time getting acquainted with the vendor landscape and begin learning this new language now.

• Always Be Human

Consumers are people. And people often make decisions that are difficult to understand in hindsight, much less predict in advance. The human psyche is a mysterious thing, so no matter how awesome your data is, there will be times when it offers up the whole enchilada, and times when you’re left staring at an empty tortilla. Remember that data only reveals what consumers do, not why they do it. Keep that in mind and the Big Data thing will probably seem a lot less daunting.

Unfortunately, my wife is exactly the same way.

It doesn’t happen as often as it probably should, but when we travel together things can get a little…competitive. Sometimes she’ll cave and take her “rightful” place on the passenger side. And when she doesn’t, we just take separate cars.

OK, it’s not really that bad. Seriously. But like most Type A marketers (as if there were any other kind), I know that relinquishing control can be a painful thing to do.

But do it we must. Because like it or not, consumers have officially taken the wheel. And as new mobile technologies and social communication channels evolve, brands will have to find better ways to influence the destination. At the very least, we need to be present along the digital highways and byways our customers are traveling to help them get from Point A to Point B. Because with a little luck and a lot of planning, there’s a good chance they’ll stop by and see us along the way.

It’s not an overstatement to say that our ability to drive consumer awareness, consideration and conversion will hinge on how well we mark those digital routes. And that’s what this blog is all about. Some of the stuff we’ll be covering includes:

The New Rules of Consumer Engagement

I’m inclined to believe that traditional B2C marketing rules are rapidly being replaced by a new consumer-driven, “C2B”-style engagement model.

Yes, I know the C2B acronym isn’t entirely “new” and that it’s sometimes used to describe an entirely unrelated marketing concept, but it’s tough to produce a more elegant and effective way to articulate how the consumer/brand engagement dynamic has flipped.

I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen…
Second screen. Third screen. Fourth screen. Whatever. At the end of the day, they’re all just screens…interfaces that enable us to access and interact with people and content. Here, we’ll examine the opportunities for brands to build compelling, engaging and contextually aware cross-screen consumer experiences based on current and emerging form factors, device capabilities, usage trends, etc.

The More Things Change…

You know the rest. And the saying applies as much to consumers as it does to everything else. Sure, they’re more connected and empowered than they’ve ever been before, but they still have the same basic challenges, needs and desires. Consumers’ use of mobile and social technologies hasn’t changed their day-to-day goals. What definitely has changed is the tools they use to tackle those goals.

The trick is figuring out how to insert your brand into their lives in ways that deliver real value. Do you have a truly authentic and meaningful benefit to offer them? Figure that part out and the communication channel becomes a whole lot easier. Which leads us to…

Big Data, Right Data and the Pursuit of Contextual Relevance

Few would argue that the time has come for brands to adopt a data-driven approach to contextual consumer engagement. The intensely personal nature of mobile and social demands it. Leveraging data analytics allows companies to give consumers richer and uniquely relevant cross-screen experiences, so check back often to see what’s up in the world of data-driven marketing.

They see the future of marketing in ways that most of us miss. And they’re going to change the way you think about branding.

Social, mobile and emerging sensing and analytics technologies provide us with extraordinary insight into the lives of our customers and prospects. It gives us new channels to engage with them in some incredibly powerful and personal ways. Attend Context and learn how to make it happen.