A recent report performed by the CMO council reveals some staggering results:  50% of over 450 marketers worldwide said they had only a fair, little or no knowledge of their customers.

The report focused on where and how “marketers are ‘operationalizing’ customer intelligence and insight to reduce customer churn, increase lifetime value, improve the customer experience, and increase the effectiveness and targeting of marketing spend."

While Web 2.0 is developing at a breakneck pace, marketing technology seems to be left behind (or at least its effective implementation). What’s great about Web 2.0’s is that it spreads user-generated content; its value comes from those who ultimately use it. Marketing departments need to tap into the proven success of this model: content succeeds when it’s based on the customers themselves, but right now the majority of companies seem to be missing out.

According to the report, a major obstacle for the companies surveyed is the unification of disparate customer repositories, resulting in the inability to garner adequate customer intelligence and insight.

The CMO Council believes that “investing in integrated systems that harvest customer insight is critical to driving both marketing and business performance.” Simply put, comprehensive marketing solutions should be designed to leverage customer data for the creation and delivery of relevant marketing that reduces customer churn and increases loyalty.

Here are the CMO Council’s key findings:

• Only 15 percent of marketers say their companies are doing an extremely good or effective job of integrating disparate customer data sources and repositories; 55 percent note there is room for improvement or a deficiency in this area.
• More than 31 percent of companies surveyed had customer churn rates of more than 10 percent and 32 percent reported turnover of five to 10 percent. In comparison, more than 62 percent said they desired or expected a churn level of less than five percent
• Respondents believe customer churn significantly impacts business performance through revenue loss (59.9 percent), reduced profitability (39.6 percent) and greater marketing and re-acquisition costs (36.3 percent)
• While churn is a big issue, nearly 67 percent of those surveyed say they have no system for re-activating dormant or lost customers, while just over half of respondents have a strategy for further penetrating or monetizing key account relationships.
• While more than 35 percent of respondents report that the CMO or marketing department (38.9 percent) has primary responsibility for the customer analytics function, they are not leveraging its value. Over 31 percent of those surveyed do no data mining at all and 63 percent are only doing moderate levels of data mining for intelligence and insight.
• The top six strategic applications of customer information by marketers include:
  • Up-selling and cross-selling
  • Segmenting and targeting
  • Driving retention, loyalty and promotional programs
  • Identifying new opportunities and unmet needs
  • Improving customer service
  • Shaping personalized and customized communications
• Key initiatives to increase customer retention include improving customer communications (65.2 percent); addressing complaints, problems and pain points (51.8 percent); and enhancing the customer experience (54.8 percent). Unfortunately, fewer marketers noted their companies’ willingness to modify business practices and policies to accommodate customer needs.

Read the original article: "Marketers are Flying Blind When It Comes to Leveraging Customer Data and Analytics, Reports the CMO Council."