Could 2016 be the biggest year yet for data?

2016 is set to be a watershed one for the data and insight-driven marketing industry. More companies than ever before are seeing the value in customer data and are ready to invest in gathering and analysing data. At larger firms, the role of the Chief Data Officer, or CDO is now becoming the rule rather than the exception, while developments in technology are making data analysis quicker and more accurate, which in turn leads to an increase in confidence and a subsequent increase in investment. As ‘big data’ loses a little of its buzz we shall see whether consistency and improved targeting will move the focus from Big Data to Meticulous Data as value begins to steal the crown from volume.

Above all else though, 2016 will be defined by the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation, which could yet prove to change the way companies hold customer data, as long as they can hold it, and what they can do with it. Consumers – particularly Millennials – are becoming more open with their data and have a better understanding of the value of data exchange. Next year could well see data being the single most important item on the corporate agenda.

So, there’s a lot ahead of us, but don’t just take our word for it; TDP Marketing’s Victoria Pooley, Managing Director – gave her opinion in the late December edition of DBM, the leading data and insight driven marketing industry title, to provide her thoughts and opinions from other leading data firms, on what they think lies ahead in 2016.

Victoria Pooley
Managing Director of TDP Marketing said…

“With the onslaught of negative press surrounding data’s role in marketing in 2015 and the tightening legislation from Europe and the ICO the industry must evolve.  It is my belief that due to the focus on third party permissions surrounding consumers’ right to be contacted (or not) that the evolution will involve the outsourcing of all direct marketing to the data controller thus creating a demand for full service marketing agencies.  I envisage the end of the road for the one-trick pony data companies and brokers with businesses asking directly for them to manage their mailing, emailing and telemarketing campaigns from creative to calling thus ensuring that data never leaves the shores of the originator and reducing the risk of breaches, also providing clarity for the original source of opt-in.  It will also provide the consumer with much more transparency over how and why they were contacted and more importantly, give them back control.”