Sit up and take notice, says Tim Haynes – the latest news headlines surrounding alleged data misuse will mean even brands that collect and use data ethically and in good faith will struggle to persuade customers to trust them. Here’s some practical advice on building consumer trust – and how to put marketing ‘skulduggery’ firmly into the past.
Take a look at your business and your data and draw up a list of your marketing strategy pros and cons, says Sonal Patil. Data-driven marketing and how you use it – strategically and actually – is vital to your business’s growth. She says, if used effectively, a data-driven marketing strategy can create a big advantage in the marketplace. But if you ignore your data, or use it badly, you can significantly harm your relationship with your customers.
Does the deluge of data sometimes make you feel like you are fighting for air? Box clever, says Tyler Greer, ensure your data strategy planning and the insights you are gathering are punching in the right direction: data that is correctly verified is thus good data – providing insights that guide our targeting; clearer understanding of audience behaviours that drive higher performance campaigns. Here’s how and why you should get the good data.
The forthcoming GDPR is designed to help protect consumer data, not to hamper businesses and hog-tie them with red tape. Those businesses that adapt to the changing rules – that turn big data into smart data – will survive and thrive, says Julie Neilson, explaining how marketers in the retail, automotive and financial services sectors are surmounting the obstacles and reaping the opportunities . . . showing that it can be a case of new privacy rules OK!
First, computer cookies as data collectors and now AI, bots and myriad automation – they are all bringing a level of ease and convenience to our lives as consumers; offering targeted ads, using our locations and preferences for relevance, saving us our valuable time. But they also offer unease and concern . . . followers or stalkers, assistants or snoopers? Just how far can technology – and brands and even governments – go when it comes to gathering and using data? It’s all about ethics, says Steven van Belleghem, delving into the great privacy & technology debate.
It is now generally agreed that the process of analysing data is key to successful marketing. Collecting data from happy and consenting customers is fine, but putting that data to good use – identifying trends, optimising campaigns and examining effectiveness in detail – is still a skill that many marketing departments lack. How skilled is your data scientist? …What’s that? You don’t have one, just a regular marketer trying to keep all the balls in the air (and dropping a few)? Find out why the science of data is so important – as is the need to fill that specific role.