Marketers are constantly looking to meet, and exceed, customer expectations. But according to March 2016 research, less than half of marketers feel confident their organization understands the customer journey.
Millward Brown Digital polled 300 US senior marketers from brands, agencies and media companies. The survey found that as consumer behavior continues to shift, marketers are having a hard time keeping up.
Indeed, more than half (55%) of senior marketers said they were not confident in their company’s understanding of the customer journey. And for many marketers, reaching consumers is the most important factor that’s influencing media budget allocation, that same study found.
What’s more, Millward Brown Digital looked at how confident marketers are in their organization’s use of big data. Confidence among brands was low—fewer than half of brand respondents said they were confident. Nearly two-thirds of brand respondents were not.
US Senior Marketers Who Are Confident in Their Company’s Use of Big Data, by Company Type, March 2016 (% of respondents)
And though 60% of agency respondents and 59% of media respondents said they were confident in their company’s use of big data, a significant amount were still not.
Data analytics can help deliver better customer experiences. A February 2016 survey from from Forbes Insights, in association with SAS, revealed that nearly half of executives worldwide anticipate that data analytics will result in an across-the-board shift in their ability to deliver a superior customer experience within the next two years.
Furthermore, 29% of respondents who currently use data analytics have seen a significant shift across the board in their ability to deliver superior customer experiences, more than a third of have seen shifts in many areas, and more than a quarter of respondents have seen moderate shifts.