Top 3 priorities for the CIO in 2023 as a Data Steward — Part 1
Introduction
In most organizations, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) plays the role of a data steward. She acts as a liaison between the IT and business sides of the enterprise.
From the marketing point of view, the focus of the CIO as a data steward is to make sure the marketing team is provided with the required data while also ensuring the data is used in line with the required security and compliance standards.
However, as a CIO who aspires to contribute to the enterprise’s growth, this current level of involvement is insufficient.
We believe you should champion the next level of data usage to help your enterprise grow. Although there are many things that you could do, the following should be your top three priorities:
- Setting up a Real-time Customer Data Platform
- Enable Cross-channel Customer Journey Analytics
- Setting up Data Cleanrooms
In Part 1 of this 3-part series, we focus why setting up a real-time customer data platform should be your top priority.
Setting up a Real-time Customer Data Platform
We believe the top-most priority for the CIO in 2023 as a data steward is to implement a real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP) and empower your CMO.
A CDP is a centralized repository that stores customer data from multiple data sources or channels that an enterprise has, such as websites, mobile apps, email, SMS, social media, etc. The purpose of a CDP is to provide a single view of the customer.
Why Real-time CDP?
The success of your marketing team in contributing to the growth of your organization is dependent on the following two parameters:
- Communication Relevance
- Communication Timing
Communication Relevance
Gone are the days of spray and pray marketing. Even new customer acquisition campaigns on Google, Facebook, etc. are now targeted, although based on demographics and psychographics.
The targeting is aimed at maximizing the relevance of the communication to the targeted audience.
A customer data platform plays a huge role in ensuring your marketing team’s messages to your customers are extremely relevant.
How?
A CDP aggregates data from all customer interaction channels, processes those, and presents a 360-degree view of your customer-products currently owned, segments she is falling under, recent interactions and intent, preferred channels, preferred time of day, and so on.
As a data steward, when you empower your CMO with this level of insight, the relevance of the messages that she sends to her audience grows manifold.
Communication Timing
We have a famous saying in Xerago that goes like this:
“A relevant but an ill-timed message is as bad as an irrelevant message!
This is exactly why we recommend a real-time CDP as your top priority and not just any other CDP.
A real-time CDP allows you to ingest streams of data as and when they happen or at an extremely high frequency so that the view of the customer is updated to the most recent interaction.
By connecting your marketing automation platform to the real-time CDP, your CMO can make the most of every single trigger that she has set up for initiating campaigns and journeys.
Thus, having access to the 360-degree view of your customers in real-time will help your CMO not just time their message but also customize it based on the customers’ most recent interaction.
Summing up
While we agree that being a CIO and a Data Steward, you have many responsibilities, taking initiative to setting up a real-time customer data platform should be your top priority.
A real-time CDP can greatly improve the effectiveness of your CMO’s marketing programs and directly contribute to the top-line. By limiting unnecessary marketing communication, you can also activate cost savings and contribute to the organization’s bottom line.
With this, we have come to the end of Part 1 of the 3-part series. In the next part, we cover why enabling cross-channel customer journey analytics should be your second-most priority as a CIO who is also a Data Steward.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
