Thorpe sets up data advice venture

Former Indicia, G2 and Acxiom data chief Alan Thorpe has set up a new service designed to educate chief marketing officers to make data deliver bottom line results for their organisations.
ConversationGlue.co.uk, which launches this week, comprises a series of punchy 3-minute “how to” videos that outline the top five or ten things marketers need to know about each particular aspect of good data strategy. Videos are grouped by topic area, to make navigation easy.
It has kicked off with the basics under the banner “getting started with data”, and features seven videos from “understanding big and small data” to “how to build a business case for data-driven marketing”. The site will delve into more specific areas over the coming weeks.
Thorpe said the idea for the site came from an IBM “C”-suite survey, which reported that over 82% of chief marketing officers feel under-prepared for the data explosion.
He explained: “As connected consumers we expect our favourite brands to give us a seamless customer experience across any touchpoint we choose and whenever we want to engage. That’s a tricky thing to do and requires excellent data management capabilities.
“The trouble is that ‘ducking out of data’ isn’t really an option for brands since, as consumers, we gradually marginalise anyone or any company that doesn’t join our connected, glued together, world. Sending us irrelevant marketing that isn’t informed by data just drives up marketing opt-out rates.
“Data can be the most wonderful relationship glue. It helps you understand and glue together customer conversations across touchpoints. For consumers it can make brands easy to live with and relevant at an individual level. Internally, data informs management decisions by providing pictures of customer and prospect numbers, segments characteristics, current and potential values, needs, likes, touchpoints and customer journeys. You can focus investment upon activities that make a real difference.”