Trend: Marketers Deluged By Data: Strategy Change Is Imminent.

So we’ve heard it a million times, “less is more”. However, we as marketers don’t always subscribe to that mantra. Frankly, if we did, we’d be selling ourselves short. But what happens when the influx of customer information becomes so great that we require an additional system in place to make sense of it? This is one of the challenges we are facing today. A recent study by IBM estimated that 90% of real time data that constantly flows from platforms like Facebook and Twitter is going unused. Marketers have no concrete system in place for gathering it. I can’t help but be reminded of the I Love Lucy episode in the chocolate factory. Lucy and Ethel alternate wrapping and eating chocolates, but before they know it, the production line is moving so fast they can’t keep up. Chocolates are streaming out at such a rapid rate that most fall to the floor untouched. At some point, our conveyor belt of informational goodies went on overdrive and the marketers of the world are now trying their best to keep up. But unfortunately, much is getting lost as the pace of data dispersal has greatly increased.

Takeaway: The production line isn’t slowing down.
Our goal as marketers has always been to gain new customers while increasing the value of current ones. We do this by learning as much as possible about them so we might continually increase the value of the product or service we offer. The more we know, the better we can tailor our business to fit and please them. But what happens when that simple formula gets back logged with data? How do we break through the cloud of information and extract the most important details? Well, we’re not sure yet, but companies like DataLab are emerging to help us along the way. In the future, data mining and analytics will become more important and it will be difficult to ignore your company’s need for its integration in your marketing efforts. DataLab and other companies like them are providing analytical models to help sort through the mess.

How To: Find yourself a net
Without a sophisticated system in place, marketers will not be able to make use of all the data their customers are offering. So for now we should start with the basics. First and foremost we must realize that marketing analytics is not a onetime effort. It will be continuous and should evolve with your company’s needs. Ask yourself what marketing channel generates the most customer interaction. Focus on that and build off it. It would be a shame to lose the leverage of an already successful channel for the sake of a lacking one. Once you’ve honed in on that channel, you can begin to sift through all the information it provides. Realize that prioritizing here will be key. Set goals for what you would like to analyze and stay focused. Chances are you already have everything you need to get started. Excel has an optimization feature called solver and an analytical tools package already baked into its functionality. These will put you well on your way to solving optimization issues as well as regression analysis.
Finally, pay attention to the options you’re giving your customers within your email campaigns. If you’re not already doing so, start utilizing preference pages within your campaign as a way of simplifying data collection. Offering the opportunity to customize the content and frequency of emails they receive will keep customers engaged. List attrition will decrease and will provide the data collection ground work to expand on in the future.