There are an estimated 3.5 million Google searches, 1 billion hours of YouTube views, and, on average, over four hours spent on our smart phones each day. As Marketers, we have way more data than we could ever hope to analyse, and with this wealth of data in front of us, it becomes difficult to know what to do with it all, especially when bogged down in ‘vanity metrics’ such as click throughs and open rates.
In spite of this, data is unquestionably essential to the modern marketer because it allows you to send targeted communications to your audience at scale, but only if that data is properly segmented, managed and up to date. Marketing Technology is essential to successfully managing this, and there are various tools available to each marketing technology platform to aid you, such as Tableau and Datarama.
The Spine and Marketing Cloud
Marketing Cloud allows marketers to import and manage data from multiple sources, providing a great depth of insight into customer behaviours and interests across various channels. The various studios available provide marketers with complete control over their data, and how it moves between various campaigns and engagements.
However, many marketers still struggle to make the most out of their martech’s data capability, as well as ensuring they have strong platform and software integration and prioritisation, thus forming a strong Martech Spine™. The Spine operates under the core principle that your software needs to be integrated and prioritised, and certain tech is more important than others.
Having a strong spine allows Marketers to make the most out of Marketing Cloud because it provides the capabilities for your BI tools to successfully communicate with Marketing Cloud, creating seamless journeys, both on and offline. If you want to find out more about our Spine concept, click here.
For those organisations that haven't yet fully integrated their tech into a fully functioning Martech Spine, there is a clear knowledge deficit in their Marketing Cloud data capabilities. Business Intelligence (BI) has exploded in recent years, and it can now be considered as one of the most essential platforms in any organisations Martech Spine.
Pain Points
Even those utilising BI tools such as Tableau or Datarama still see these pain points:
Poor Customer Segmentation
Segmenting data correctly is the best way to ensure your audiences are receiving the right content for them. This can become more complicated the more data you have, but it is good practice no matter the size of your business to have good data health. Well segmented data gives marketers the opportunity to create truly personalised customer journeys, built around the absolute specifics of a prospects interactions with their organisation.
No end to end visibility of customer journeys
Customer data should be recorded throughout a prospects lifecycle with your organisation, and yet we still regularly see a reporting black hole once a customer has left the marketing cycle and entered the Sales one. This can be redressed with better reporting processes and by utilising the full capabilities of platforms such as Marketing Cloud. 
A lack of MROI Reporting
Your C-suite want to see a holistic view of Marketing’s financial contribution. This ranges from efficiency savings, cost savings and revenue generation, to Marketing’s impact on improving other departments across the business such as Sales and Customer Success. In order to effectively operate end to end marketing communications at scale, organisations must assess the quality of the data they have and ensure they are only tracking that which is beneficial to the campaign objectives and strategy.
You've identified the problems, now what's next?
Marketing Cloud has a variety of tools in house – and available as stock plug ins – which can help you make the most out of your data capability. Essentially, Marketing Cloud allows marketers to speak to customers with the right message, in the right tone, at the right time, and Clevertouch exists to bridge the gap between your Marketing Cloud aspirations, and your ability to deliver on those aspirations, in platform.
If you want to find out more about optimising your data strategy and management using Marketing Cloud, click here.
