Nearly half of marketers rate their customer knowledge as fair or poor in a survey by the Chief Marketing Officer Council. Most marketers believe personalized marketing messages are more effective than mass marketing, and many expect to put more money behind personalization this year.
56% of marketers believe personalized marketing messages are more effective than undifferentiated mass marketing—a figure that grows to 63.4% in Internet-related industries—but many give themselves low marks in personalization, according to a global survey by the Chief Marketing Officer Council. Most marketers expect to put more money behind personalization initiatives this year.
Nearly 50% of the 700 senior marketers surveyed for the global “The Power of Personalization” study rate their companies fair or poor in knowledge of their customers, and 47% think their data integration capabilities need improvement. Almost 50% say there is a low degree of integration of data across marketing channels.
Despite their belief in the value of personalization, 43.5% report only a low level of personalized communications with customers, 39.4% a moderate level and 17.1% a high level.
“Today’s consumers are drowning in a sea of unrelated marketing campaigns, and marketers’ dollars are being wasted as a result,” says Barbara A. Pellow, group leader at InfoTrends, a market research and consulting company that co-sponsored the study. “InfoTrends’ recent direct-mail research indicates 63 percent of consumers prefer highly personalized and unique offers. More investment in personalized marketing is vital to the success of marketing campaigns and, to some extent, business results as a whole.”
Many marketers expect to increase their spending on personalization. 55.1% of the marketers surveyed say they plan to increase their 2008 budgets for personalized communications by 10% or more.
49.1% of respondents say inadequate systems and infrastructure limit their personalization initiatives, while 46.2% cite lack of customer data and 43% cost and complexity. Success in personalized marketing initiatives is measured by conversion and close rates, quality and volume of leads, customer feedback, e-mail open and forwarding rates, and web site traffic and page views, the study says.
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