ONE THING YOU CAN SAY ABOUT marketers is that they’re hardly satisfied with themselves. It’s especially true about their customer data systems.
In a recent poll of general marketing execs by the CMO Council, 40% rated their systems as weak or worse.
The most damning self-assessment concerned the integration of data across systems and departments. Almost 40% said they were weak in this area and 18% very weak. Only 14% rated themselves as strong or very strong and another 29% as adequate.
In addition, fewer than 30% rated the accuracy and reliability of customer information as strong. And 21% called it weak.
The numbers also were dismal concerning availability of useful reports and analytics. Only 18% said they were strong vs. 33% who confessed they were weak. Ten percent described themselves as very weak, and another 35% felt they were adequate.
The glass was also less than half full when it came to the relevance of data to marketing strategy. A third said they were weak in this area. Only 22% rated themselves as strong or very strong.
Where do they get their customer data?
A third rely on internal CRM systems, and 16% on an aggregated internal marketing database. Only 9.1% turn to organizations and associations, and 8% to list brokers and information service providers.
Still fewer derive data from customer service, distributors or channel partners, transactional/order processing systems and magazine and directory publishers.
The poll was conducted online in January and February and drew 568 respondents. Among them were CMO Council members, and readers and customers of Chief Marketer (an e-mail newsletter and Web site produced by Direct publisher Prism Business Media), BtoB magazine, ClickZ, MarketingSherpa, and the Promotion Marketing Association.
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