• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, May 1, 2014

According to The 2014 Digital Marketer Benchmark and Trend Report from Experian, data has become a focal point of all marketing efforts. In fact, 93% of organizations think data is essential to their marketing success. Though 87% of companies engage in cross-channel marketing, 84% face a challenge in this area of their operation. The biggest challenges to engaging in cross-channel marketing are having accurate information and having enough information.

The marketing industry confirms that successful marketing programs must have accurate contact data across all communication channels to ensure successful interactions with customers, but

• 67% of companies have experienced email deliverability problems in the last 12 months.
• Contact data tops the list of data deemed to be essential to marketing success, followed by sales data and demographic data.

The majority of organizations suspect that their contact data is inaccurate in some way. On average, global organizations believe 22% of their data is wrong, which is up 5% from just a year ago. In the U.S., organizations believe that a quarter of their data is inaccurate.

Consider the statistics below:

• On average, U.S. organizations believe 25% of their data is inaccurate
• 93% of companies believe data is essential to their marketing success
• 91% of companies suffer from common data errors, the main cause of which is human error
• 77% of companies believe their bottom line is affected by inaccurate and incomplete data and on average, respondents believe 12% of revenue is wasted
• Email is the most important marketing communication channel for 2014
• 66% of organizations lack a coherent, centralized approach to data quality

Only one third of companies manage their data quality strategy centrally, through a single director, says the report. That means 66% of companies lack a coherent, centralized approach, says the report. Most have little centralization and manage data quality by individual department. For marketers to really take advantage of data insights, information needs to be accurate, consolidated and accessible in real time. A centralized organization-wide data management strategy is essential for marketing success.

But the high level of inaccurate information is brought about by a high level of human error. In many instances information entered across the organization is typed into a database at some point manually, by an employee or the customer directly. That exposes information to different levels of standardization, abbreviations and errors.

According to the retail industry

• 81% of retailers have encountered problems with loyalty programs, mainly as a result of inaccurate customer information
• 56% of retailers are capturing customer contact data through mobile applications
• On average, retailers interact with customers across four different channels
• 93% of retailers suffer from common data quality errors, the most prevalent being incomplete or missing data

Data enables marketers to create a more personalized experience and connect with the consumer in an ever-increasing digital world, says the report. With improved insight, marketers can create more sophisticated and targeted messages to individual consumers. Heightened insight also enables better coordination across channels.

Though data quality is the foundation for any data-driven activity, concludes the report, the high degree of inaccuracy is creating difficulty in finding meaningful insights that allow marketers to be more targeted. Many marketers are working with first-party information from around the organization and using it to append additional third party insight, and have little control over the quality of the information they are utilizing.

For more information and access to the Digital Marketer Report from Experian, please visit here.