Data: Optimising your brand's data strategy (Part Two)
After our first conversation with David Ellis, Managing Director at data consultancy Station10, on the evolution of data management and insights, part two dives into the challenges brands have today and how they can optimise data strategies. Catch up on Part One.
What are the challenges brands face today when it comes to data use and analytics?
First, you need to assess where you are on your data maturity journey. This insight will guide you in choosing the right tools and strategies to make meaningful progress.
If you're already along the journey and using sub-second real time personalisation, for instance, it's more about understanding how to influence other areas of the business.
It’s not always that easy for some businesses. We spoke to one brand that's advanced in data use and analysis and they wanted to adjust content for film recommendations. The challenge for them is that they faced a three-week delay for legal sign-off, despite having the technology for sub-second real-time personalisation. This highlights how internal processes can impede progress, showing that not every solution will work for all businesses when other factors are involved.
If you’re at a different maturity level, the challenges might be how do you train people up? Have you got the tools in place? How do you run it more efficiently?
I'm constantly amazed at how relatively few organisations have got a CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) programme in place, a really well-established tool that has been around for a long time now.
How easy is it for businesses to implement a CRO programme or make these changes?
To implement a CRO programme is actually pretty straightforward. The challenge is more around expectations - so what improvements can you be making to your systems, or where's the blockage on this particular conversion funnel?
You also need to appreciate it’s probably not going to increase your sales straight away. The point about CRO is it's a testing programme. It will get you there, but it might not be the first test. It might not even be the second or third test. But statistically by the fourth test, you’ll start seeing the improvements, if it hasn't happened already.
That's the real challenge with a CRO programme. It's not about immediately delivering revenue, it's a change in mindset.
That's the real challenge with a CRO programme. It's not about immediately delivering revenue, it's a change in mindset.
What other challenges would you highlight here?
Data quality follows the 'rubbish in, rubbish out' principle: if your underlying data is poor, any decisions or segmentation based on it will be flawed. It's important to make sure that the data you're capturing is accurate and that you haven't got errors in your data collection.
And then it’s key to have solid data governance around that to ensure you're using the data in the right way. Have you got consent to use the data, following GDPR and so forth?
The challenge when you start talking about governance, is it gets really unsexy and it can be difficult to get a board to sign off.
Why is ‘real time’ so important now?
The key question is: what does real time mean for your organisation? If you're updating product recommendations while customers are shopping in a supermarket, it needs to be sub-second. For example, if a customer picks up bananas, you should immediately suggest custard to seize the opportunity.
For many organisations, "real time" can still vary. In fashion, fewer products may limit basket changes, while in B2B, it might just require an overnight message.
It really matters about what your use case is as to what you define real time to be, because clearly the digital systems required for a genuine sub-second server transaction is hugely more complex.
We did one piece of work a few years ago for TUI. It was important for them to understand what buying mode their customers were in. Were they at the research stage, or at the stage with lots of tabs open and ready to buy? If they were starting to behave in a particular way and happy with that particular visit, they're more likely to transact. Focusing on enhancing that specific experience in the moment is crucial. Various tools are available to help influence that kind of behaviour.
How does your company Station10 help businesses navigate this tricky field?
We are data consultants and help organisations make the most out of their customer data. We can help anyone at different stages of their data maturity journey in terms of using digital and multi-channel environments to optimise their customer outcomes.
We help those who are just starting out right through to those who are looking to get to the next step, from offering and implementing a whole range of data strategy to finding the right tools and advising and supporting the teams and structures needed.
We will often be working alongside organisations to deliver either a full insight capability or working alongside existing insight and analytics engineering teams.
Station10 helps businesses manage data quality and then supports them to deliver meaningful insights and feed into CRO optimisation programmes and educate a brand’s senior teams. We can link up these systems, do the plumbing and then also enable organisation to activate and deliver on them.