Marketers are still being hampered by a lack of resources, with more than eight out of ten (81%) claiming they do not have easy access to all the customer data needed to inform their activity, and over a third believing they are still four or more years away from achieving a true customer-first approach.
That is the worrying conclusion of a new study by customer data technology platform Plinc, which reveals that marketers believe they are still not being taken seriously enough by top management and are constantly being forced to prove their worth in driving business growth.
The upshot is that these issues impact the effectiveness of their campaigns and their ability to grow their businesses, despite companies which put their customer first being 60% more profitable than those who don’t.
The report argues that, with inflation rates causing business costs to soar, along with the prices consumers pay, personalisation has become a lynchpin for increasing customer retention rates.
Yet disjointed and inaccessible customer data is affecting these efforts, with over two fifths (44%) believing their personalisation is unsophisticated – impacting the effectiveness of campaigns.
One reason, cited by nearly two-thirds (61.5%) of marketers, is that their core customer data is only updated once a week or less frequently, potentially diminishing the relevance and impact of their activity.
In fact, only 23% of marketing professionals strongly believe senior leadership recognises customer marketing’s impact on business growth, with “proving their value to protect budgets” reported as their greatest source of stress.
Furthermore, inadequate resources and funding are restricting over two thirds (68%) from fuelling expansion.
Plinc chief strategy officer Stuart Russell said: “Ultimately, the lack of access to customer data has made the role of customer marketing fraught with uncertainties, challenges and stressors. Yet, there is a way marketers can alleviate the concerns keeping them up at night.
“It starts with marketers educating businesses on the wider value of customer data. Not just for marketing activity – but for product development, customer experience initiatives, customer support and beyond.
“Through instilling a true ‘customer-first’ mentality throughout a business, marketers can start to optimise their campaigns while also demonstrating business impact.”
The Plinc report follows calls for senior marketers to follow the mantra of “education, education, education”, to build stronger ties with their chief executives and ensure marketing is at the core of their company’s growth strategy.
A report by McKinsey, “How the CEO-CMO relationship can drive outsize growth”, published in November, maintained that CEOs who bring marketing to the forefront of their operations are twice as likely to see their business record annual growth compared with their peers.
One former CEO at a Fortune 500 fintech company told McKinsey: “There’s a lot CMOs can do to educate managers about the possibilities of modern marketing. My knowledge of modern marketing is a reaction to our marketing team’s implementation.”
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