Personalization is increasingly critical in the quest to reach consumers with appropriate messages across a multitude of platforms. But it’s still a struggle to accomplish it.
Why? Marketers haven’t mastered the development of a single customer viewpoint, and according to a July 2014 survey by Forbes Insights in association in Sitecore, fragmented and siloed data systems were a key factor preventing this.
“Senior executives polled in North America said their companies were using an average of 36 different data-gathering systems and vendors—and some used more than 100,” reveals a post at eMarketer. “It comes as no surprise, then, that just 24 percent of respondents said the various customer communications and data-gathering systems they used were integrated or connected across their organization. On a more positive note, 56 percent said such systems were partially integrated, indicating they were taking steps toward a more streamlined future.”
Senior executives know that must change. The survey discovered that 62 percent believe creating a single, central customer marketing database to house customer experience information was a priority. Fully 59 percent said the same about having a single system to deliver customer experiences across all potential digital channels.
That sentiment got a back-up in a May, 2014 Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Conversant.
“Fully 35 percent of U.S. business-to-consumer marketing professionals said building a comprehensive single view of each customer across all sales and marketing channels was an extreme challenge to broader implementation of personalization, and 30 percent said it was a major challenge,” the report concludes.
