Data, tech, marketing and everything in between

Data and its uses fascinate me!

I can’t pin point my fascination exactly, but it probably has something to do with my memory and sometimes stubborn nature/ability to sit down and focus on a task until I get it right.

The world around us is full of data — companies are using it to learn more about their consumers, product designers are using it to design/create more relevant products, advertisers are using it to position relevant adverts in-front of website/platform users, insurers are using it to change people’s behaviour — that’s before we even start unpacking how data points are being used to create mapping systems like Waze, which help us navigate the fastest route to our destination. You get the picture, data, data everywhere.

Over the last couple of years, I have worked with and in a couple of different data environments. The exposure has been awesome and I continue to have my eyes opened by this rapidly developing environment, you will be amazed once you actually start thinking about how many data points are actually all around us and at our finger tips.

Earlier in the year Carel, a friend and colleague, shared this Youtube video with me. It’s a session from the MIT Sloan Sport Analytics Conference. It is a long watch/listen but it is fascinating to see how some of the biggest brands/businesses in the sports industry are using the data at their disposal to gain insights into their audience. They are then using this information to make changes to their viewership offering.

Data, marketing, people and tech are elements that work very closely together. If you still see them as completely separate then you need to realise that it’s 2019 and not 1920. Things are changing at a rate of knots. Companies like Salesforce, Hubspot, and Google have been category leaders in driving marketing change and the adoption of new systems. What does the marketing of the future look like, will in include voice and how will marketers communicate with their customers?! I will expand of this at a later stage, but I wanted to highlight it here because it too relates to data.

With all of the data points we have floating around us, it is easy to get into a frenzy and think that we need to use it all! However, now more than ever, we need to take a step back, uncomplicate things and understand ‘why’ do we need it, ‘what’ will it help us achieve and ‘how’ will we use. Don’t use data just for the sake of using it.

It’s an exciting time to be working, learning, communicating and growing in the marketing space. If you have any insights that you would like to share or discuss, drop me an email joshua@cnandco.com.