Data is now an integral part of every sector and function in the global economy and much of the modern economic activity simply cannot take place without it. The large pools of data when collected and analysed can help identify patterns and help in making better decisions which form the basis for competition and growth for organizations. To determine the competitive advantage that an organization can gain with customer data-enabled learning, there are some important questions that they should answer.

• How much value addition is made with customer data?

The higher the value-added the higher the chance of creating a lasting competitive edge.

• How quickly does the marginal value of data-enabled learning drop off?

What this means is that how soon does an organization reach a point where additional customer data no longer enhances the value of the offering? When the marginal value of learning from customer data remains high even after having a large customer database, the organization still will have a lot of competitive advantages.

• How fast does the relevance of the data depreciate?

If the data become obsolete quickly, then the organization stands to lose its competitive advantage over others in the same industry.

Having looked at how data can help organizations, it is now time to consider the role of data for marketing agencies and how it is driving growth. The role of a marketing agency has been evolving due to the ever-evolving digital landscape. New sources of consumer insights clubbed with new technological advancements have transformed the way brands connect with their consumers. Agencies are now tasked with delivering unique actionable audience insights to provide the base for persona development, analytics, and more by

1. Crafting new client pitches – customer data can be crucial in forming new client pitches as they offer insights and opportunities to grow a business. This data helps in formulating a plan that will translate into client deliverables. Since the customer data will not be available for a comprehensive analysis, the agency can leverage what they know about the brand’s target audience concerning demographics, psychographic, and other data. In doing this, they can clearly show
   • A strong and distinct understanding of the target audience and audience segments.
   • Help in enhancing the brand’s existing customer files, campaigns, and analytics
   • Gather insights about the competitors and show prospects and untapped opportunities.
   • Help in planning of product roadmap based on untapped consumer wants and needs
   • Enhance and improvise on the customer experience based on consumer personas.
2. Formulate data-driven personas – data can be very useful not only in formulating new client pitches but also to develop personas for organizations. Personas focus on creating characters to represent user types for a brand, site, or product. These personas have contributed in a big way by helping a brand get a better understanding of their customers to personalize projects for better ROI. Strong personas can help brands
   1. Improvise the customer experience by ensuring that brands are talking to the right people, delivering the right message through the right channel.
   1. Invest in the right channel- personas help brand prioritize what channels to use to have the maximum return.
   1. Craft relevant messaging-personas have known to help brands tailor communication by ensuring that the audience is receiving messages as per their preferences. With the right data, brands can pinpoint the key motivators and help determine what makes the audience different and tick.
3. Improving campaign performance– developing personas in the stepping stone to elevating the marketing efforts of a brand. Consumer data is a vital resource for agencies who are looking to meet and exceed the performance goals. By combining various kinds of data, efforts can be made to build sophisticated audience models that can be consciously used for the execution of the campaign through all the stages of a customer’s journey from acquisition to retention. This has often led to a better campaign performance from awareness to engagement to conversion.
4. Enhancing analytics and insights– analytics and insights based on consumer data are essential to optimizing efforts made for the future. Enhanced analytics is a key area of focus for brands. To capitalize on this, the agencies must have on-demand access to unique data sets and tools that can be used to the needs of the brands they serve. It is a well-known fact that third-party data when used with campaign analytics can help brands discover new audience insights that lead to new opportunities.
5. Provide data processing and consulting service– in today’s date, the agencies should not only be equipped with deep data expertise that helps in persona development, campaign performance, and enhanced analytics and insights but also serve as always-on advisors for data management and evaluations. According to a recent study by Forrester Consulting, companies are dedicating 21% or more of their marketing budgets to data and analytics. Having said that many organizations have hurt their campaigns due to inaccurate, outdated, and inconsistent data, thereby presenting an opportunity for marketing agencies to offer value by using data and analytics to their advantage.

For brands to get the most out of the marketing efforts, there needs to be a shared understanding between the brand and the marketing agency of the goals and the target audience. By offering high-quality consumer data and leveraging across the marketing funnel, from persona development to campaign execution and analytics and insights, new doors can be opened for a collaboration between the brands and the marketing agencies.