I attended the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing January lunch event at Bin36.
Graham Mackintosh from IBM spoke about how IBM Cognos social media monitoring software helps companies understand their customer better. The implications of this are significant for any direct to consumer business.
Companies have to understand what is happening on the internet related to their brand, competition, and industry to make intelligent business decisions. Software tools like Cognos pull together in a usable format millions of pieces of consumer data.
I asked Graham how industry currently uses the software and what will happen in 2012. Most current clients are monitoring internet conversations and in some cases using analytic insights to inform better marketing programs.
However Graham believes this is not enough. Future leaders will integrate intelligence into their business processes. The ability to know in real time what consumers are doing makes it possible to be smarter about business strategy, marketing decision making, product development, and customer service engagement.
In my opinion this new best practice will be table stakes in any industry sooner rather than later.
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