DMA Insight: Trust Must Remain Top of Marketers' Agenda in 2020

13 Jan 2020

United to judge the DMA Awards 2019, senior marketing professionals were asked about the current and future state of the UK marketing industry.

One of the questions we asked invited them to think about the biggest challenges they face in their daily work, with their teams and within their organisations.

Long-term trust is not a long shot…

59% of these experienced experts agree that reinforcing customers’ trust is something marketers still have to work on and it will stay up on their 2020’s agenda.

Consumer data seems to mirror their concerns. Indeed, when we asked customers to rank how much they trust the marketing messages they see, less than half of them (38%) rated this on the higher end of the scale (5-7 out of 7) regardless of the channel.

Furthermore, as we saw earlier this year, it’s not just a mistrust towards brands. The industry has seen a general trend of more and more customers lacking faith towards the whole advertising world.

Senior marketing professionals also perceive ‘Understanding customer wants & needs’ as a key issue (52%), along with ‘Measuring ROI’ (48%) and ‘Adapting to data privacy regulations’ (45%).

…And this is your silver bullet

So what’s the solution to the trust-dilemma?

As the Data and Marketing Association, our answer is intelligent marketing: a customer-focused offering reachable by working responsibly, sustainably and creatively.

As an industry we must be curious about customers. We must continue to explore and understand what consumers think, feel and do like few other industries.

Almost all marketers (94%) agree that intelligent marketing is an essential part of the data and marketing industry and 90% believe that it represents our future.

Although just two thirds (65%) of professionals consider intelligent marketing part of the current mindset of the industry, highlighting how there is still room for improvement if we want to fulfil this ambition.