Customer insight from Big Data: why marketers must educate their colleagues and clients

It seems ridiculous to say it but adding three letters (B, I and G) before the word ‘data’ has left marketers up and down the country scratching their heads. If the level of discussion in the media wasn’t enough to convince you, then a recent study from Tagman and Marketing Finder has confirmed it: marketers see Big Data as a ‘distraction’ and social media is only muddying the waters further. Marketers have become lost amid a barrage of overcomplicated jargon.

There’s no doubt that any new innovation or concept is going to be difficult to grasp if you don’t have the required expertise to truly understand and utilise it. In her recent blog post,Honda’s Rachel Hall outlined the CMO obsession with investing in technology in a bid to keep up appearances before they’ve considered the relevance or internal capabilities to truly use it.

What good is tech without the customer insight?
However, the desire to dazzle isn’t purely the preserve of agencies looking to woo clients but also brands looking to seduce consumers into sharing their data. This is being driven by an understandable fear rooted in the struggles of high street and previously untouchable, long-standing names such as HMV and Jessops. As a result, there’s been a clamour to embrace technology and use it to gather greater data and insight and ensure their offering is as up-to-date and relevant as possible.

The most recent example comes from embattled retailer Morrisons, which has joined Argos,Selfridges and Tesco by investing in technology through the creation of an ‘innovation department’. The supermarket’s emerging technologies manager, Chris Allen, has said that the grocer felt “empowered” to push the button on IT advances because consumers are more accepting of new technology.

This sentiment is noble – if slightly belated – given the way that consumers have been able to manage and deftly switch between several different platforms and channels with ease for a while now. However, the real danger for Morrisons isn’t being late to the party but falling into the trap of purely pouring money into technology and gathering data without the correct expertise to decipher true consumer insight.

Demystifying Big Data for colleagues and clients
For any business, investment in technology is a great first step in evolution and innovation but it is by no means the most challenging part. The true test is how businesses set about using the data gathered to decipher insights and develop an integrated customer engagement strategy that runs across all the touch points. This can only be achieved if the industry at large is prepared to demystify the subject and educate clients and colleagues to better understand the opportunities. This means shedding the jargon and acquiring real actionable insights so that all the stakeholders within a business can truly see the potential of Big Data to deliver significant ROI.

Only when the entire supply chain from the marketing manager all the way up to the CEO are invested in gathering and understanding Big Data, will marketers truly be able to unlock its full potential. Through education we can reduce the hindrance that those three little letters are having on the industry.

By DMA guest blogger Simon Gray, Head of New Business for Lateral Group