Marketers that are “leaders” in data-driven marketing report far higher levels of customer engagement and market growth than their “laggard” counterparts, according to a new report from Forbes Insights and Turn.
Based on a global survey of more than 300 executives, the report finds widespread agreement that data-driven marketing is crucial to success in a hyper-competitive global economy. What’s more, the report finds that data-driven marketing has delivered demonstrable results in terms of customer loyalty, customer engagement, and market growth.
Consider this: Leaders are three times more likely than laggards to say they have achieved competitive advantage in customer engagement/loyalty (74% vs. 24%) and almost three times more likely to have increased revenue (55% vs. 20%).
Marketers have been employing data in various forms for some time, the study says, but a convergence of tools and technologies is now changing the game. Marketers have unprecedented access to individual 
transaction-level data and can match that with the customer's exposure to marketing activities and ads.
While many organizations have some form of data-driven marketing in place, strategies are being implemented in piecemeal fashion, within siloed business units, without fully taking advantage of the resources that are available.
“Effective data-driven marketing draws on resources from across the enterprise, not a single department,” Bruce Rogers, Chief Insights Officer and head of the CMO Practice for Forbes Media, said in the report. “And without data, marketing is not based on customer intelligence.”
Here are some other key findings from the report:
- Growth and commitment to data-driven marketing are on the rise, with most organizations planning to step up their efforts. However, about half of executives admit their efforts are lagging or are siloed across their enterprises. A majority is now collecting demographic data on customers, but most other data types remain uncaptured.
- Leaders in data-driven marketing are more than six times more likely than laggards to report achieving competitive advantage in increasing profitability (45% vs. 7%) and five times more likely in customer retention (74% vs. 13%).
- The travel industry is a clear leader in achieving competitive advantage through data-driven marketing. Sixty-seven percent of travel executives say they have done so in customer engagement/loyalty, 56% in new customers and 59% in customer satisfaction.
- Retail is another leader here: 55% of retail executives say data-driven marketing has helped them achieve competitive advantage in customer engagement/loyalty, 52% in new customers and 50% in customer satisfaction.
- The energy industry is a laggard here: The respective numbers are 30% in customer engagement/loyalty, 10% in new customers and 10% in customer satisfaction.
- Data-driven marketing doesn’t happen in isolation, or solely within one section of the marketing department. Data-driven marketing is an enterprise-wide effort that requires data, expertise and innovative thinking from many parts of the enterprise. For most of the companies leading in this practice, there is also tight integration between organizations’ overall digital initiatives—adoption of big data, cloud, social and mobile—and marketing campaigns.
- Despite increasing emphasis on data-driven marketing, the majority do not offer training and education to develop data-driven marketing skills. Leaders tend to offer programs and encourage employee development in this area.
The survey was conducted in October 2014 and includes 331 responses from senior executives. Respondents hailed from marketing (26%), and another 26% focused on analytics. Industries represented in the survey included technology (21%), retail (18%), telecommunications (15%), and consumer packaged goods (10%). Other industries included advertising, travel, automotive, and banking. Close to half (48%) came from companies with $1 billion or more in annual revenue, and another 16% had between $500 million and $1 billion in revenue.