It’s Time to Break Down the Data Silos of Marketing!

New research suggests that Marketing organizations need to do a better job at breaking down the internal “silos” that separate functions and data. One of the reasons why this issue has emerged is that people like to keep a tight control their slice of the data “pie.” I thought it might be helpful to share some suggestions on what can be done to overcome this challenge to help unlock greater efficiency and performance with how Marketing teams operate – a win-win for all!

Data silos can be found in many places. Within a digital campaign, it might include contact information, such as name, title, employer, email address, and phone number. Event sponsorships might include a list of attendees; website visitors represent another source of contact information.

Over time, it can be difficult to keep track of all this information. And, to ensure the data is accessible and current. Further, with the changing data privacy laws and the fact that these records include Personally Identifiable Information (PII), it is now increasingly critical to know exactly where all this data resides.

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What is the Best Analyst Relations Strategy?

Analyst Relations is a term used to describe the practice of working with industry analysts to help with marketing awareness and sales acceleration programs. The best strategy depends upon your objective. Many analyst firms exist today. Gartner, IDC, and Forrester are three of the more well-known firms, however, many others exist. In terms of revenues, IHS Markit leads the pack with almost $4B and 13,000 employees. Gartner follows closely behind with $3.3B and 15,000 employees (source).

One can trace the origins of this industry to when technology solutions became difficult to understand and compare. In other words, when the technology purchase process became complex, which began back in the 1980s. Since that time, there has been quite a bit of specialization and fragmentation of the IT, technology, and software markets. As new technologies continue to be introduced (cloud, AI, machine learning, etc.), systems and platform interoperability have only further added to the complexity!

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How Much Content Should You Share?

In the world of content marketing, every marketer must make a decision on what information should be provided openly, and what should require registration to access. Traditionalists will argue that the concept is straightforward – information that is more valuable should be deemed “worthy” of registration to gain access. With registration, however, comes an expectation of future follow up, be it in the form of a call or email from the sponsoring party. This knowledge dissuades the reading of your material, working against your desired objective.

Today these lines are blurring, which is causing some angst for those of us involved in content marketing.

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