Like every year, new market trends are emerging. In a context of crisis and a constantly changing economy, let's see how data marketing has evolved in 2021 and what trends are emerging for the years to come.

VSEs/SMEs, the "Data centric" turn

Digitization to speed up processes

The pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of companies in certain sectors. In particular, these changes have been significant in the VSE and SME segments.

As for large companies and SMEs, they are already mature in this area. Indeed, most of them are already equipped with tools to structure, connect and activate their data. The objective? To better share it with all the company's stakeholders.

VSEs/SMEs, what maturity?

If the benefits of these new experiences for prospects, customers and users are significant, what about the company itself? Beyond developing or redirecting its sales through a mastered omnichannel strategy, is the company exploiting all the richness and power of the data generated by these new behaviors and contact points?

The answer is clearly no, at least not in an optimal way. So, how can we exploit and value this data? How to activate data for marketing action and sales efficiency? These are the challenges that VSEs and SMEs will have to face in 2021 in their business strategy.

Marketing data for marketing performance

Automation at the heart of the issues...

The modernization of available tools and technologies is one of the priorities of marketing teams in order to generate a new pool of data. This new approach allows to better exploit the abundance and heterogeneity of this new data...

... through marketing automation solutions and other BI tools

Today, companies need marketing automation solutions and business intelligence tools to track and analyze all stages of the prospect's and then the customer's ominichannel journey.

Establishing a single, shared view of customer data across all organizational units is the second step, as highlighted in the latest Salesforce survey of 4,100 marketers.

In fact, in France, only 44% of marketing professionals have a unified and global view of customer data sources. There is still a long way to go...

The company is increasingly focused on its customers/prospects and is becoming, by force of circumstance or rather technological tools, more and more data-oriented. The evolution of practices is therefore moving from a "consumer centric" approach to a new approach, this time oriented towards "Data centric".

Marketing data for sales performance

How to refine, share and disseminate data with the sales teams?

Another trend is also confirmed: the rapprochement between marketing and sales teams. Indeed, marketing shares common indicators and objectives with the sales force and this is the case in nearly 51% of the companies surveyed.

This influx of customer knowledge feeds the sales force on a daily basis through common tools (CRM, ERP, DQM, etc.) and guides the account strategy (ABM) of the Key Account Managers.

But in order to be well used and not to drown the sales teams with more or less relevant data, marketing must filter and rework the data upstream to translate it into commercial use.

Towards an increased mastery of data

The subject has been a trend for several years. However, the analysis of data to optimize marketing and sales actions will accelerate in 2021. The company will have to accelerate its mastery of these subjects in order to maximize the impact of any marketing strategy and more globally of any business strategy.