The Old Marketing Value Chain had two links: rules and tools. The New Marketing Value Chain has three links:
1. Data-driven insight
2. Truly quantifiable strategy
3. Application of creative and technology
Data-driven insight, the first link of the new value chain, reveals “why” marketing works. It discerns hidden patterns in the numbers that improve the decision making process in the other two links.
Intelligence derived from data can help you find your most profitable customers, identify new business opportunities, deliver better targeted leads to sales, offer real-time insights to make smarter campaign decisions (e.g., running “what if” scenarios, changing creative on the fly, etc.), and much more.
Data is the first link in the New Marketing Value Chain, because the insights that can be drawn from it are necessary to even begin successful implementation of the next two links.
The second link of the chain –– strategy –– then becomes more important than ever. No longer “flying blind,” companies can greatly minimize, if not eliminate, waste from their programs, often maintaining their existing budget, yet achieving quantifiable improvement in marketing performance. Effective marketers will use data to empower their strategies, adjusting a campaign’s approach in real-time based on data-driven insights.
The third link is the combined power of creative work and technology. Marketers will need to continue to track and capitalize on the best technologies and channels available. They’ll still need to engage customers and inspire employees with powerful brands and creative expression. But data will make these things much more accountable than in the past. The creative process and use of technology throughout the marketing approach will be imbued with insight from data, rather than reliant on capricious rules of thumb.
In this way, the new accessibility of data and analytics is transforming marketing. Data-driven insights are the basis of the New Marketing Value Chain. To adapt, marketers need to reinvent their strategies. Read our upcoming post on Wednesday to learn more.
What are you doing to reinvent your work?
Photo credit: Emilian Robert Vicol via Flickr Creative Commons
(Click here to expand)
