Marketers Lacking In Analytics Savvy: Global Survey

While direct marketers shouldn’t break their arms patting themselves on the back, a little burst of self-congratulation might be in order. Just under 47% of marketers around the world have “good insights into retention rates, customer profitability and lifetime value,” according to a new study from the CMO Council. And more than three-quarters of the respondents believe they aren’t realizing the full revenue potential of their existing customers.

That said, whether coincidence or the result of tough economic times creating a demand for more accountability, 64% of those surveyed indicated they were evaluating their marketing spend with an eye toward increasing yield and accountability.

Marketers were asked about their top three areas of focus. Among the responses cited:

* 47% want to bring more discipline and rigor specifically to marketing budgeting and spending.
* Another 47% want to leverage existing resources to enhance customer communications.
* 41% would like to explore new customized communications technologies.
* 39% want to move marketing investments to Internet and mobile channels.
* 33% wish to improve behavioral targeting of advertising and online marketing campaigns.
* 32% want to adopt and use CRM and sales automation applications.

In general, marketers have very little customer data, Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council told Direct Newsline. This restricts the quality of efforts, beyond the scattershot prospecting level, they can undertake.

For instance, “One of the problems marketers in general have is determining what the most valuable and profitable accounts are, what churn rates are, and the reasons why people are deactivating,” Neale-May added. “Fewer than 30% have reactivation programs.”

There’s at least some indication this may be changing. Sixty percent of the survey’s respondents list introducing better segmentation, profiling and targeting strategies as a top priority for engaging core customers. Other planned activities include:

Adding or improving database marketing systems (49%).
Acquiring new customer and market analytics capabilities (30%).
Personalizing multi-channel communications and customer touch points (30%).
Individualizing print, email, text messaging, call center or Web interactions (26%).
Building online customer communities and interactive channels (26%).
Capturing more customer information via the Web and at point-of-sale (25%).

“What worries me is that marketers tend to be campaign driven, lead- or prospect-acquisition driven,” Neale-May said. “They tend to be more outbound marketing focused as opposed to analytically and internally driven. Direct marketers are very analytically driven. They invest in segmentation and targeting and looking at behavior and what the optimal opportunities are.

“A lot of mainstream marketers tend to be focused on media buys, which drive awareness or brand recognition or recall. They acquire prospects, but 80% of those leads aren’t actioned. [Marketers] aren’t taking those leads and cultivating them to the point where they can be handed off as a potential deal.”