After reading a recent article Forrester article on the struggles of marketers trying to create a multichannel view of their customers, I began to think about what is primary source of the problem. Putting aside the technology discussion, it really comes down to one question: “What is it that marketers want to know?” For most, the answer is “anything and everything I can get”. Unfortunately, that answer is why data integration projects tend to go off the rails leaving anyone involved disappointed with the results.
Rather than asking for “anything and everything,” you should start small and come up with a short list of questions for a particular customer segment, scenario and/or lifecycle. For example, one question might be which channel (direct mail, telephone, email, search or display advertising) is more effective (e.g., ROI) in converting customers who have taken a free trial of your product or service? This simple question defines the customer segment, what channels they will interact with, and the data need to answer the question. Secondly, the resulting answer provides the marketer with a direct action to take. If the answer is that email is the most effective, then that is where a majority of the budget should be spent.
With these questions in hand, it becomes much easier to define (1) what data is important, (2) what are the sources of that data, and (3) how the data will be used. And as an added bonus, by defining the project through a series of questions, you have a built-in success metric. All you have to determine is whether the data answers the question.
Come up with the right questions and the data will flow.
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