Why Having a Single Source of Data Truth is Crucial

Which department of your organization has the most valuable customer data? Marketing? Sales? Customer service? Ideally, all of these internal teams would tie for first place because they would all use the same data that is stored in a central repository and accessed through integrated technology systems.

When data is not centralized, inconsistency and inefficiency issues can arise. Your marketing technology should not only be able to support the needs of your marketing team, but also your sales and service teams, as well as your overall business objectives. By having a single source of data truth within your martech stack, your organization can share data across teams to make information highly visible and easily accessible.

Here are a few reasons why having a single source of data truth is crucial for your organization. These advantages should shed light on the current state of your own organizational data to see how and where improvements can be made:

Deeper insights into customers' preferences

When your company has centralized access to information that is collected at any time and across all customer interactions, you can create customer profiles that are more deeply informative and useful for your teams than ever before. These interactions, or touchpoints, would include any point at which customers engage with your brand on marketing channels, download sales materials, communicate with customer service, etc. As you collect this information and begin to build customer profiles, you can start to learn the answers to important questions such as: What do customers want from your company? What is holding them back from engaging with your brand? What motivates them? With more data, you stand a much better chance of discovering who your customers really are.

Richer data insights that span across different channels and touchpoints can also shape the personas that you develop for your company, especially as patterns emerge over time. By creating personas based on real observations, you can ensure that the content you are delivering fits the needs of your audience.

Greater personalization for marketing campaigns

Converting a customer can be the result of sharing a specifically appropriate piece of marketing collateral at a time when it is needed the most. Having a centralized repository of data allows you to complete this process with minimal manual intervention. Marketing automation tools can help you automate your email outreach, so that each known customer in the database gets a message targeting his/her preferences, needs, and/or interests.

More consistent brand experience across channels

One of the persistent problems that has affected companies operating on numerous channels and platforms is an inability to deliver on customers' expectations for a single, unified brand experience. If a customer spoke with a customer service representative on the phone, shouldn't the customer's sales contact know what happened during that exchange? After all, both employees work for the same company.

Companies that don't synchronize their data across platforms and channels may create breaks in the customer experience, which can drive people away in frustration. On the other hand, organizations that do recognize their customers and deliver personalized messaging tailored to their preferences are much more likely to receive repeat business from loyal customers.

Optimized use of technology tools

How many different marketing and sales technology systems does your organization use? It's typical for companies to have more than a dozen martech tools, each with its own unique set of data. To make matters even more complicated, these different platforms might use similar terms or naming conventions to refer to slightly different metrics, which can lead to confusion among and across teams. 

However, with a consistent set of data, your organization can begin to access the full value of your marketing technology.  Every employee should be trained to learn how to use this information and understand its meaning. That way, you can generate real, actionable insights about your audience, instead of disparate data sets.

If you're eager to find out how well your marketing technology stacks up to this standard of centralized data, start with a technology assessment! Ask our team what you can do now to start making meaningful improvements to your performance.