Utilizing big data for marketing is a practice best suited to B2C. It’s an assumption that many B2B companies struggle to shake off, and reports find that many B2B marketers still fail to find ways to use it effectively.

Fears about the validity, quality and disparate nature of data are legitimate reasons why marketers may be reluctant to put big data to use. However, there are data cleansing, enhancing and processes to unify a customer database to address these issues.

Predictive analytics, predictive modeling and the technology it powers has become one of the most exciting techniques in the marketing toolbox. One recent study found that 32% of US marketers hope to start using their data to predict customer trends in the next five years.

Marketing moves fast. Before the world went digital (which wasn’t actually that long ago), marketing campaigns were predominately created for TV, radio and most of all print. As such, commercial printers were the go-to place to fulfill an organization’s advertisement, brochure or direct mail needs. Then came new marketing channels, making the others look old fashioned: online ads, social media, email, mobile and more.

The biggest brands in the world have a lot of money in their marketing and advertising budgets. And, in the so-called ‘Age of the Customer’, much of this money is spent on demonstrating customer obsession; that delivering the optimal customer experience is at the core of everything they do.

While it is great to have brand ambassadors, such as a YouTube vlogger who will wax lyrical about a brand’s products to tens of millions of subscribers, organizations need to look closer to home to ensure that their customer-focused attitude is authentic. They need to look to the very top.

BlueVenn is incredibly excited to announce JOIN 2017, a data marketing conference for marketing and insight professionals, held at the Aria Hotel & Resort in Las Vegas, November 2-3, 2017.

It’s easy to get excited about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) - such as predictive analytics and machine learning - in B2B marketing. It seems like only a few years ago that virtual assistants using speech recognition, customer service chatbots and machine learning-optimized recommendations seemed like the stuff of science fiction.

The deluge of data from an ever-increasing number of channels and sources has opened up a wealth of new possibilities for businesses to reach out to their customers and prospects. To some, though, such volume has also proven overwhelming. Consider this: 47% of marketers of marketers claim to be “very confident” in their ability to analyze complex data, yet 64% believe that analysis should not be part of their role.

This reluctance to engage with data beyond its collection, particularly when so many marketers say they understand it, doesn’t appear to be the best approach. The same report found that over half (58%) of surveyed consumers believe they are inadequately targeted by marketing campaigns, with 83% saying they hate irrelevant ads and email marketing.

For a long time, omnichannel was just another of many confusing marketing buzzwords. 

In some cases, it was unclear precisely how an omnichannel strategy differed from a multichannel approach. In others, it met resistance because of a reluctance to move away from the product-centered practice of getting a product or service in front of the right people.

Now, the paradigm shift to omnichannel is impossible to ignore. The overwhelming emphasis today is about getting people to product, while making the process of doing so as effortless, consistent and contextual as possible. 

Is your business looking at its marketing through the lens of the customer? Because if you aren’t using customer insight to find out what customers want and how they want it, you’re stuck in the past.

Part of constructing effective marketing communications is being able to adapt, and marketers have to be ready to change their approach when old strategies start to look obsolete. With the introduction of new technologies, cultural shifts, and the evolution of customer expectations, the digital age never pauses.

The most obvious and monumental change is the shift away from the Age of the Seller towards the Age of the Customer.