Data and your customer

Put first-party data first

We open Future Trends with a contradiction highlighting the need to ditch sentiment and fairy dust, shoot past survival mode, and perform on tangible knowns.

Key takeaways

Relevance relies on quality data
First-party data is maximized by long-form content
Superior personalized content is underpinned by first-party data

"I'd say predicting or riding on the waves of trends is quite dangerous for marketers. The next big thing always promises the silver bullet that just never actually hits the target. It also can set false expectations around the wider business of what marketing can realistically deliver. Method is more important than 'magic'.

So I'd say the most important thing marketers can do in 2024 is to ensure their plan is aligned with the needs and wants of their target customers, and then aligned with the capabilities and commercial imperatives of their own business. In that order. To support that strategic approach, I would advocate being wary of intent data providers (the silverest of bullets).

Instead focus on creating relevant, niche content for your ideal customer profiles, and then distribute this across core channels to build your own first-party data set, from which you can infer buying intent, rather than pay someone to do that (usually not very effectively) for you. We've been doing exactly this over the past three months, and it's been a game changer in terms of lead flow and pipeline creation.”

Dan Roche,
CMO at Workbooks

Instead focus on creating relevant, niche content for your ideal customer profiles, and then distribute this across core channels to build your own first-party data set, from which you can infer buying intent, rather than pay someone to do that (usually not very effectively) for you.

Workbooks are using engagement data to generate a more active pipeline.

Their most important B2B content - long-from whitepapers, reports and brochures - are published as online documents that surface reader behavior and first-party intent.

But can intent data push content to meet new expectations?

If you'd like to learn more about judging buyer intent from your content, you'll like this webinar. Turtl founder Nick Mason joins marketing expert Chris Carpenter and behavioral scientist Dr Alexandra Dobra-Kiel.

“Over the next couple of years, I expect to see a big increase in B2B content personalization (with varying degrees of success). Some companies will fling lots of data into a black box AI and hope for the best, but others will take a more rounded and considered approach. As audiences begin to tire of undifferentiated content and half-baked personalization, there’ll be an opportunity for marketers who can do personalization well to pull ahead of the pack. Of course, that needs to be underpinned by meaningful, high-quality data and a platform that facilitates personalization at scale.

But it also requires real-world insights and audience empathy based on the lived experience of experts – not to mention the originality and creative flair to stand out and earn people’s attention. Marketers who are willing to invest the time and resources required to get personalization right will build a powerful demand-generation machine.”

Matt Godfrey,
Head of Copy
at Radix Communications