Marketing data science trends

Perspectives

Marketing data science trends

How the science of data analytics is shaping the future of marketing

Deloitte practitioners recently sat down with data science thought leaders to discuss current issues and future trends. In this video series, Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Remzi Ural, senior manager, talks with Elea Feit, assistant professor of marketing at Drexel university, about the impact of data science and data analytics on marketing strategies and programs. Emerging data science methods, from micro-segmentation to natural language processing, are being applied to large data sets in real-time to create a new marketing advantage.

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In the end the analytics won't tell you the next big creative idea. It will tell you when the next big creative idea is working.

                                                                                                     - Elea Feit, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Drexel University

Data science in marketing: Trends

Data science and analytics are driving big shifts in marketing. In fact, the possibilities are unfolding so quickly that new applications for data science-led marketing are emerging nearly as fast as marketers can imagine them.

Some current applications include:
  • The rise of digital advertising: Especially transformative for small businesses, data-driven, digital advertising gives smaller organizations and agencies, which were once cut out of costly television advertising, new and cost-effective marketing channels in the digital realm.
  • Micro-targeting and micro-segmentation: Statistical analysis of semi-structured and unstructured data allows marketers to slice and dice data in ways to inform creative executions against micro-targeting strategies. This helps marketers deliver specialized offerings to smaller, highly specific customer groups.
  • Speed and performance: From planning and promotion to execution, analytics-led marketing approaches can increase speed and improve execution of campaigns. To validate success, analytics methods can be applied to vast data sets to measure the effectiveness of marketing programs and help marketers understand what programs are working best.
  • Real-time experimentation: Using analytics to better understand customer sentiment about product and service attributes is becoming a core competency. The big news here is scenarios and experiments can now be tested in real-time rather than in hindsight or on an intermittent basis. As a result, companies have an opportunity to more immediately engage with and delight customers.

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microscope

Data science in marketing: When will you know if it’s working?

Many companies mastering analytics-led marketing usually have a champion in place driving the effort. It might be the CMO or a direct report to the CMO—like a director of marketing analytics.

According to Professor Feit, it's crucial for that person to understand the entire customer journey and be able to ask questions like:

  • What are all the points at which we touch our customer?
  • What data do we have that tells us how that interaction is going?
  • If we had a dollar more to spend on data collection and analytics at any point in the customer lifecycle, what’s the most important information we could get about our customers?

From the advertisement to web browsing to purchasing to shipping and receiving to customer service to customer sentiment expressed on social media, many effective marketing and data science champions know the entire customer journey and all the related data assets that lead to a greater understanding.

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Interested in a career in data science?

Check out the faces of data science at Deloitte to learn more about how others have found a passion and career path in data science, and how you can too.​

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