Firms bogged down in data; clueless what to do with it

The wisdom of brands embracing multiple customer data collection points has been brought into question after more than a third (35%) of marketers have confessed that they are collecting more information on their customers than they could ever effectively analyse.
So says a survey, from experience management company Qualtrics, which although only carried out among a relatively small sample of 260 marketers across the UK, reinforces widespread fears over mass data collection.
Many companies have been blindly gathering all they can fr years, just because they can; it seems the ethos of less is more has not quite sunk in among many in the marketing community.
In fact, the study also found that one in ten (11%) believe their collection efforts add no value when it comes to truly understanding their customers.
Qualtrics head of enterprise for Northern Europe Ian McVey said that while all of this data could prove useful in the right context, many marketers simply do not know how to pull out the insights or identify the trends that will truly benefit their marketing approach. They have lots of data, but not necessarily the right data.
He added: “So many analytics platforms churn out dashboards full of data without providing any real meaning or context. These tools are great for filling up vast databases, but they don’t provide the intelligence needed to take this data to the next level and to create real insights.
“Understanding the why behind your customer data is essential. The most successful marketers understand this and they’re layering on a new type of data, called experience data to help make sense of the vast amounts of operational data they have and really get to the heart of what’s driving customer behaviour.”