Marketers Struggling to Use Customer Data to Create Engaging Content

Many marketers are still struggling with creating customer-tailored content and the inability to fully utilize buyer data is at the core of their struggles.

The “Age of Brand, Agency and Customer Collaboration” report from Forbes Insights and Oracle Marketing Cloud has revealed that 38 percent of executives believe they do not effectively create and deliver timely content tailored to specific customer needs.

Further, the results showed that respondents are not fully utilizing customer information to achieve their marketing objectives. Only 19 percent said they were “highly effective” at using buyer data to create new marketing programs. Just 24 percent said that their organizations were “highly effective” at generating and delivering personalized content.

“The ability to communicate with our customers and prospects on an individual, personalized basis seemed like a luxury not so long ago—it’s now table stakes,” said Tony Weisman, CEO of DigitasLBi North America, in the report. “Consumers are becoming highly attuned to how personally relevant all messaging is to their individual tastes and buying patterns.”

The Challenge of Creating a Single Customer View

Before marketers can create personalized content for customers and prospects, they need to develop a single customer view to understand their buyers. However, a report published by Experian shows that many marketers are still challenged by this need.

The “2016 Digital Marketer Report” found that 81 percent of marketers struggle to create a single view of their ideal customer. About 54 percent said that they are challenged by the technology they use to integrate customer data in real-time.

Previous research conducted by Rapt Media revealed that 83 percent of marketing content creators name personalization as their top obstacle. About 94 percent believe that better content technology could be the key to creating more personalized, engaging content for buyers.