This article is Part Five in a five-part series where I discuss the Five Steps to Data-Driven Marketing.
As I wrap up this five-part series designed to help you implement data-driven marketing, it’s time to talk about process. Granted, process is usually not a hot topic among marketers; most can’t imagine it as anything “sexy.” However, when process delivers competitive advantage or elevates brand relevance, I can assure you, it’s very sexy. Here’s how you can up your game with processes that improve performance, enhance the customer experience and increase sales:
Start by agreeing on the definition of process. Make sure your team knows you’re not talking about the old-fashioned way of doing business, like hard-copy job-starter forms crammed into folders. Today’s processes are sleek and sophisticated. They’re updated, purpose-built marketing activities made possible by advances in marketing technology and automation. Simply put, process is what will enable you to regain control of the modern marketing environment. But to get that control, you’ll need to define process for your organization and determine what analytics are required for the individual customer, overall customer and operational performance views.
Use process to ramp up accountability. I’ve discovered that insisting on accountability from my team doesn’t make me a dictator. Quite the opposite. Insisting on accountability makes me a better team player because it creates the feedback and dialogue required for clarity and collaboration. Put processes in place, and your team will find: 1) their agendas are less cluttered, because responsibilities are clearly outlined, and 2) healthy debate reveals better solutions.
Partner with IT. This theme runs throughout every one of the five steps to big data marketing. You need to tear down the silos and create a robust collaboration with IT, one that will help you address data gaps, develop a comprehensive strategy and remove the divisions that fragment data and dilute customer engagement.
Embrace integrated marketing with an Integrated Marketing Management (IMM) platform. Markets change, and so do marketing departments, strategies and campaigns. To stay agile, you must obliterate the fractured systems that fragment data. Unify core business applications to implement cross-functional and global processes, and have checks and balance in place to measure the impact.
Don’t rest on your laurels. Reevaluate your processes periodically. You need to keep pace with today’s changing marketplace. Keep questioning the existing tools and systems and focus on consolidating technologies, channels and data.
If you want to untangle the data hairball, you have to jettison provisional management processes, ad hoc applications and “taped-together” technologies. Put modern processes in place, and you’ll be able to better understand and interpret big data. Once you do, your internal teams won’t be the only ones who reap the rewards –your stakeholders, shareholders and customers, will benefit, too.
The Five Steps to Data-Driven Marketing:
Step One: Get Smart, Get Strategic
Step Three: Untangle The Data Hairball
Lisa Arthur on Marketing 
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