• by Bob DeSena , June 7, 2011

There's not much that's "hotter" than data. Everywhere we look, it's at the center of things. But this was not always the case.

Data and the notion of data-based marketing was for far too long the purview of one (albeit very large) segment of the marketing community: the direct guys. They were taught that the process (it's not a technique) all began with customer data, of the addressable and transactional kind, which led to better targeting and customized value propositions, which generated measurable response, producing more data.

If you did it right, the data would become information, and then those pieces of information would become useful knowledge resulting in business growth. Still, it was direct to consumer, not brand marketing, where data practitioners presided.

So what changed? In short, everything. Technology altered forever the meaning and ubiquity of "communications platforms." These new platforms created a more personal set of media compared to their predecessors, able to both use and produce more and more meaningful data. Moore's law had its profound impact, not only on capacity but on lowering costs. Consumers, acculturated to ever-increasing technical capability, and the control it afforded, began to exercise that control. And they demanded more of marketers, particularly brand marketers. They wanted to be spoken to on their terms, where and when they decided. In short they wanted more, and Relationship Marketing was (re)born.

What is CRM? Besides being a very misunderstood acronym, it has essentially morphed into direct marketing for brands. And it requires skill in the acquisition, maintenance, and application of data, a skill that may not have grown as fast as the need for it.

Relationship Marketing relies on data, pure and simple, and is the essence of data-based marketing. But it also requires an understanding of the data, to a level beyond the information, to its meaning in human terms. The irony is that the "high tech" and disciplined science related to data application today is most useful to the extent that it is accompanied by "high touch." A recent news story related to new capabilities in data visualization (see the Museum of Me website from Intel) is an example. And there are more. There are several large companies in the space, with progressive leadership, who have made the transformation from metrics supplier to consumer connector. And, as in any environment of change, there is a newer breed of companies whose power in the market comes from their ideas, applying new and multiple sources of data in a new approach to traditional media, and to the fundamentals of accountability.

It is the best of times to be in this business.