CMO.com Highlights: Data-Driven Marketing and the Role of Curiosity

Last week’s exclu­sives on CMO.com focused pri­mar­i­ly on data-dri­ven mar­ket­ing. More and more com­pa­nies are becom­ing data-dri­ven while oth­ers still need that extra push to focus on the data avail­able to them. This is espe­cial­ly true for firms that are in a rela­tion­ship with a glob­al media agency because mar­ket­ing cam­paigns often pro­duce an enor­mous amount of data. Who has access to this data and how is it uti­lized? Those ques­tions were expert­ly han­dled this past week. Oth­er impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tions were the role data plays in the deci­sions a com­pa­ny makes as well as the prac­ti­cal lim­i­ta­tions of data in decision-making.

The week began with an eye-open­ing dis­cus­sion of the rela­tion­ship CMOs have with glob­al media agen­cies. Many busi­ness­es are up for renew­al with their media agen­cies, and mar­keters need to be smart about what they pay atten­tion to when they rene­go­ti­ate their glob­al media deals. Tom Den­ford, Joint CEO of ID Comms, advis­es his clients to look for the best deal, but to also pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to data and trans­paren­cy. CMOs need to have more access and con­trol over data that results from a cam­paign. Also, CMOs need assur­ance that the data aris­ing from a cam­paign is avail­able exclu­sive­ly to the com­pa­ny that paid for it.

In last week’s exclu­sive inter­view, Ed Kamm, Chief Cus­tomer Offi­cer at First Util­i­ty, talked about the role data plays in his orga­ni­za­tion. Kamm looks at data for insights about his cus­tomers, and this in turn dri­ves the actions the com­pa­ny takes. First Utility’s goal is to get cus­tomers util­i­ty bills as low as pos­si­ble while deliv­er­ing reli­able ener­gy all the time. The idea behind this strat­e­gy is to give the cus­tomers more mon­ey in their pock­ets to address oth­er crit­i­cal needs. In this way, the com­pa­ny strives to be “a dif­fer­ent kind of ener­gy com­pa­ny.” In addi­tion to let­ting data dri­ve the actions they take, Kamm is focused on mak­ing First Util­i­ty a com­pa­ny cus­tomers can trust. He does this by ensur­ing that the organisation’s actions align with what they say they’re going to do.

Data was a fre­quent top­ic at last month’s IQPC Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing & Trans­for­ma­tion Exchange event in Lon­don. Maarten Stram­rood, Direc­tor of Online & Seg­ment Mar­ket­ing at Zig­go, a Dutch tele­coms oper­a­tor, men­tioned the dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives and new insights that can often result from a com­pa­ny com­bin­ing and analysing all of its data sources. Jean-Paul Jansen of Proc­ter & Gam­ble sug­gest­ed using data to chal­lenge the assump­tion of its com­pa­ny that most fra­grance sales hap­pened in-store. The data proved oth­er­wise and the com­pa­ny was dri­ven to turn to using dig­i­tal channels.

Jon Bains, the found­ing part­ner of What & Why, chal­lenged com­pa­nies to aban­don the pro­file of the per­fect mar­keter or what is often called the “Full Stack Mar­keter.” When a com­pa­ny is recruit­ing, skills are an essen­tial com­po­nent for any poten­tial can­di­date, but the most impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic a per­son can have is the abil­i­ty to be adapt­able. The mar­ket­ing world is always chang­ing, and being adapt­able is how a mar­keter stays ahead. Bains shared six key ques­tions a com­pa­ny needs to work through in the process of look­ing for and hir­ing mar­ket­ing candidates.

Paul Bay, the founder of Cit­i­zen­bay and Cit­i­zen­brand, fin­ished the week with a sober­ing reminder to com­pa­nies that main­tain­ing curios­i­ty is more impor­tant that being data-dri­ven. He men­tioned that many busi­ness­es that feel stuck turn to data in hopes of get­ting unstuck. The prob­lem is that if data only shows a com­pa­ny what is, the com­pa­ny will be unlike­ly to look ahead or look out­side their sec­tor to dis­cov­er what could be. While many com­pa­nies are becom­ing more data-dri­ven, Bay argues that they need to be curios­i­ty-dri­ven first of all because it leads to incred­i­ble dis­cov­er­ies. Bains gave sev­en prac­ti­cal tips for reignit­ing curiosity.

We hope you’ll read and ben­e­fit from our exclu­sive engage­ments with lead­ing mar­keters and indus­try leaders.