Industry Trends

There’s no doubt that the pace of planning is moving from annual to anytime as the rate of change in the marketplace increases. Whether an organization is planning for execution in digital or other types of campaigns, planning cycles are becoming very short. However, multi-year planning is still valuable for organizations to set strategies and operating budgets, but multi-year forecasts need to improve so that marketers can have a better understanding of how this year’s plan affects future year plans. This is where ThinkVine’s software-based approach comes into play. We can help organizations not only to make better long-term planning decisions but also to react more quickly to competitive changes in the marketplace by bridging the gap between how businesses plan and what is happening in the marketplace.

If you're a marketer and you don’t live under a rock, you’re inundated with talk about “big data.” You’ve heard things like: If you don’t have a serious big data project you’re missing the boat.

The recent article in Forbes by Kimberly Whitler entitled The CEO/CMO Dilemma: So Much Data, So Little Impact is right on target. The Sloan paper it mentions goes on to say, “Organizations traditionally are tempted to start by gathering all available data before beginning their analysis. 

More companies than ever are identifying themselves as “data-driven,” but challenges in managing, interpreting and implementing the data continue to mount. A recent study by the Columbia Business School and NYAMA reported that “39% of marketing executives confess that they have lots of customer data but don’t know what to do with it.” Data projects are expensive and time-consuming and, often time, leave marketers without answers to foundational marketing questions, including “How can I use this data to deliver better results and improved ROI?”

The explosion in digital and emerging media channels has brought a huge volume of rich, but complex data sources. With big data comes the promise of better decision-making information and measurement of marketing ROI. A recent study found that 91% of senior corporate marketers believe that successful brands use customer data to drive marketing decisions. (2012 BRITE-NYAMA Marketing in Transition Study)