Combating Data: How To Conquer Information Overload
By John Connors
Boathouse Founder/CEO
Image source: thoughtcatalog.com / unsplash.com
The ever-expanding ocean of “noise,” information, and data have flooded the minds of marketers trying to distinguish which data points will impact results. In an age of data overload, how can the critical variable or metric be identified, analyzed, and converted into well-guided actions? What will allow data to be a source of clarity rather than a blinding storm of statistics?
Marketers need to confront data overload by breaking the data value chain into three categories of insights that pinpoint the information of greatest significance and by categorizing the data based on how it influences the CEO, the marketing team, and the company overall.
CEO-Centric Data
The best brand CMOs are trusted by their CEOs.
Appreciating the data burden shouldered by the CEO will help marketers be more discerning in their evaluation of which analytics are driving business sustainability and growth. Marketing executives gain trust by qualifying data into categories regarding its usefulness to the CEO.
As a gatekeeper of information, marketers must deliver the most critical metrics related to driving revenue, lessening costs, generating return on investment, and driving shareholder value. If executives don’t gain trust at the CEO level, even the greatest understanding of marketing data won’t save them.
Brand-Centric Data
This is the performance data marketers think of first: target audience, first-person data, market research, competitive intelligence, sales, voice of the customer, etc.
The best marketers harness this data to track the statistical progress of their team’s work and of their department. The highest performers are not slaves to this data.
Too often marketers become stuck in the drive for performance that will justify their role and in the language of marketing ROI, and it costs them. Most CEOs believe marketers speak their own language rather than the language of business. Marketers can’t get lost in the minutiae, nor should they become distracted by the latest “shiny objects.” They need to monitor what the CEO cares about and then directly tie the marketing data to the CEO data.
New Data Sets
The most exciting part of marketing is the new data emerging on the scene. Artificial intelligence companies are now indexing every piece of content in the world every 15 minutes in more than 20 languages. AI is giving us the ability to conduct multivariate tests of creative, language, and audience.
Marketers will be able to use data to slice a company’s narrative down like an MRI takes images of the body. Brands will be able to isolate several key brand narratives, all while solving for alignment with stakeholders. AI-driven data and the solutions it offers represents a new golden age for marketing.
Marketers looking into the future will view the tsunami of data barreling toward them as a wave they can ride toward success, rather than an overwhelming force doomed to crush them. With the right tools, process, and perspective in place, data overload will not be deemed a threat, but instead viewed as an opportunity to improve the business.