How B2B Marketing Leaders Can Deliver Business Value through Data Modernization in 2024

Data is fuel for businesses. But despite the abundance of data available today, companies are lost in petabytes of unusable information.

The reason? Legacy technology!

McKinsey states that outdated and inefficient data infrastructures make it challenging for organizations to derive value from their data. This results in initiatives that don’t deliver value for the business.

Here’s the harsh truth: 

Regardless of how innovative your digital roadmap is, your business transformation is incomplete without data modernization, which ensures data security and its effective utilization.

In this post, we will discuss data modernization and how B2B marketing leaders can deliver business value through it in 2024 and beyond.

What Is Data Modernization?

According to Harvard Business Review, most companies struggle with data that is stored in multiple, disconnected systems or departments, resulting in data silos. 

Data modernization refers to updating and enhancing a company’s data infrastructure, software, and practices to meet the ever-evolving needs of business operations. 

It integrates valuable data from various sources into a centralized repository, ensuring it is secure and accessible.

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In short, data modernization helps break down data silos and creates a unified data ecosystem to unlock maximum value. It enhances data accessibility and promotes cross-functional collaboration to achieve the best business outcomes.

Top Benefits of Data Modernization for Marketing Leaders

Let’s explore the top benefits of data modernization for B2B marketing leaders.

• Improved Data Accessibility: Streamlined data architectures and efficient tools with centralized location make it easy for marketing leaders to access real-time, relevant information from an array of data. 
  This enables them to understand and respond to ever-evolving market trends and gain an edge over competitors. In fact, industry experts agree that embracing data modernization is pivotal to staying agile, resilient, and competitive.

• Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Outdated and inefficient data management tools often lead to inconsistent data across multiple departments. 
  Data modernization streamlines processes, including data cleansing, integration, and consolidation, ensuring quality and consistency. This results in enhanced operational efficiency for seamless data management.

• In-depth Customer Insights for Targeted Campaigns: Advanced data analytics tools can empower marketing leaders to compile and analyze real-time insights into the target audience’s preferences and behavior. 
  This can help them create targeted campaigns, thereby boosting audience engagement, conversions, and revenue in the long term.

• Data Security and Compliance: Data modernization helps marketing leaders deploy tools with data security features like access controls, encryption, and more to keep data secure. This ensures the data remains safe, reliable, and trustworthy for improved performance. 

• Improved Decision-Making: Modernized data infrastructure and tools allow marketing leaders to track campaigns and analyze relevant metrics. 
  This can help them gauge and build effective marketing strategies that drive positive outcomes, thus strengthening their decision-making.

Key Components of Data Modernization in B2B Marketing

Here are the main components of data modernization in B2B marketing.

#1: Data Integration

B2B companies deal with diverse datasets, including internal systems, external sources, customer databases, etc. 

Data integration comprises bringing together data from various sources, such as -

• ERP systems

• CRM systems

• External APIs

The goal is to create a unified view of the business. This enables comprehensive analysis and reporting, thus enhancing decision-making processes.

#2: Data Cleansing and Quality

Data modernization involves cleansing and ensuring the quality of data. 

This process includes -

• Removing duplicate and outdated data records

• Standardizing data formats for uniformity

• Correcting errors for enhanced data accuracy 

Clean and high-quality data is crucial for generating reliable insights and maintaining data integrity across the organization.

#3: Advanced Analytics

This component comprises leveraging analytical tools and techniques to extract in-depth insights from integrated datasets.

It encompasses implementing -

• Predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms to predict market trends

• Data visualization methods to make complex data in easily understandable formats

• Conducting sentiment analysis and pattern recognition to understand customer preferences and market trends better

With advanced analytics, B2B marketers can strengthen strategies and make data-driven decisions for effective SaaS marketing.

#4: Data Governance and Security

This component requires robust data governance and security practices to ensure its safety and compliance with privacy regulations. 

So, B2B companies should adopt standardized data policies to streamline work procedures and maintain data consistency and accuracy.

You can achieve this by - 

• Defining a standard data format

• Establishing data ownership

• Establishing data access controls

• Tracking data usage to safeguard sensitive or confidential information

#5: Data Visualization

This involves simplifying and presenting complex data insights in easy-to-digest formats, such as graphs, charts, and dashboards.

This component encompasses -

• Building appealing representations of industry trends and patterns

• Leveraging custom-built dashboards to present actionable insights

Effective data visualization thus helps B2B marketers communicate intricate findings efficiently, fostering informed decision-making.

8 Best Tips for Successful Data Modernization

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Implement the following tips for successful data modernization for B2B marketing leaders.

1. Set Specific Goals

Improving data analytics, reducing data silos, enabling data-driven decision-making, or enhancing data security - define what you want to achieve.

The goal should be - SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). 

For instance, you can outline a goal to improve data analytics capabilities to improve customer segmentation accuracy by 40% within the next three months. 

Implementing the right analytics tools and streamlining data collection methodologies can help you achieve the goal.

Further, you can track the precision of customer segmentation compared to previous methodologies and analyze how specific segments respond to tailored campaigns, reflecting the impact of improved segmentation accuracy.

Setting specific goals thus can help you create a roadmap, ensuring alignment between your data efforts and business objectives.

2. Create Data Rules

Standardized data leads to improved data quality and reliability.

So, create a data rule framework that ensures marketing data across various touchpoints adheres to defined standards.

Here are a few tips to consider. 

• Develop Data Governance Policies: Create guidelines stating how to collect, store, access, and use the marketing data across the firm.

• Implement the Right Tools: Deploy flexible data analytics tools that help implement data rules. This can help reduce inconsistencies and errors in the workflow.

• Adapt Rules to Ever-Evolving Industry: Review and update data rules to align with industry needs and regulatory changes.

For instance, you can create data guidelines for customer data usage in your CRM system. 

The guidelines can include defining standardized fields for -

• Customer information (name, contact details, industry, company, etc.)

• Data entry formats (DD/MM/YYYY for date formats, HH: MM: SS for time format, etc.)

• Data access levels for different team members based on their roles (manager, senior manager, etc.)

3. Prioritize Data Accuracy

Forbes states that low-quality data leads to skewed business decisions and poor outcomes. On the other hand, accurate data helps extract meaningful insights and improve decision-making. 

So, prioritize data quality during data modernization. 

Here are a few crucial aspects to ensure data accuracy.

• Invest in data cleansing and validation to eliminate errors and duplicate content to ensure accurate datasets.

• Implement standardized protocols for data entry to minimize discrepancies.

• Conduct frequent review audits to identify and rectify outdated information and data inconsistencies across the systems.

4. Use Flexible Methods

Embrace agile approaches to data management. 

This allows iterative development and quicker responses to market changes and ever-evolving business requirements.

For instance, you can leverage cloud-based tools and platforms to store and process data. This enables you to share the data across geographic locations, leading to efficient resource allocation and team collaboration.

Similarly, you can deploy state-of-the-art tools to enable seamless integration and data exchange between disparate systems in the organization.

The outcome? Improved collaboration and efficient data-driven strategies.

5. Secure Data and Privacy

Safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized breaches and access is crucial to delivering business value. 

Shockingly, 40% of SaaS data access is unmanaged, creating a significant threat for organizations. This can disrupt the integrity of business operations and trust among clients and stakeholders. 

On the other hand, data security and privacy reflect your firm’s commitment to compliance, improving credibility in the market.

Here’s how you can ensure data security and privacy. 

• Encrypt the Data: Data encryption allows only authorized team members to access it.

• Set Access Controls: Setting permissions and criteria about who in the team can view, edit, or share specific data can ensure data security.

• Conduct Regular Audits: Frequent audits can help identify discrepancies and vulnerabilities in the data.

• Take Compliance Measures: Ensure the tools and methods adhere to data privacy regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA. This can keep your customer trust intact while ensuring legal compliance.

6. Encourage Teamwork with Data

Encourage cross-functional teamwork and collaboration throughout the data modernization process.

Enable team members from marketing, sales, and other departments to collaborate and share expertise on real-time market trends and insights.

Leverage centralized data analytics tools with a unified dashboard view that allows everyone to be on the same page. 

This can make the process seamless and enhance data-driven decision-making, thus delivering great value to the business.

7. Train for Data Skills

Merely having accurate data can’t guarantee favorable business outcomes.

According to Gartner, a team’s performance depends on data literacy, which translates to how efficiently they leverage data.

So, promote data literacy by offering training and education on leveraging data tools and best practices efficiently and effectively. Ensure that everyone in the team has the necessary skills to analyze and interpret data for the best outcomes. 

How can you achieve this goal?

Invest in team training programs to enhance the team’s ability to derive data insights. Organize workshops and mentorship sessions where your team can learn data-handling skills.

8. Track and Monitor Progress

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure your data modernization initiative’s effectiveness. 

Continuously monitor and evaluate your efforts against the defined goals. Use these insights to refine your data modernization processes.

How Revlitix Can Help You Deliver Business Value through Data Modernization?

Our AI and ML-powered platform, Revlitix, offers comprehensive features tailored to deliver substantial business value through data modernization.

With Revlitix, you can - 

Summing Up

Data modernization optimizes large volumes of data into a usable, accessible, accurate, and valuable form to extract meaningful insights. 

Besides, it helps you improve data security measures, ensuring all confidential and sensitive information is safe and adheres to compliance standards. 

Deploying state-of-the-art platforms like Revlitix can make the journey seamless. It can help you create a data-driven culture by compiling, cleansing, and standardizing data from multiple sources while ensuring its reliability, integrity, accuracy, and security. 

Unlike legacy systems, you don’t need to manually do data entry tasks or monitor it to ensure accuracy and compliance with industry standards. 

So, embrace data modernization with Revlitix today! Reach out to us here.

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