Here’s how it goes down. An executive decides that his company needs a “social media strategy.” Along the way someone, probably a director, concludes that the company should start collecting and analyzing social media data. And link it back to customers. Someone uses the word “community” and someone else says “social engagement” and everyone gets really excited and calls the business intelligence team. And this is where it gets ugly.

“They won’t even fund more storage space so that we can monitor purchase history!” says a beleaguered DBA. “And now they want detailed profiles of all our Facebook fans? Whatup?”

Whatup indeed.

You can’t blame business executives for thinking big. Carping at them for underestimating the complexity of data integration doesn’t help much either. But when it comes to telling the truth about what customer data exists, let’s just say we’re entitled to a little finger-wagging. And it actually feels pretty good to do it, too.

What executives need to see is a natural and rigorous evolution of enterprise data about customers. They need to understand that product managers in marketing still can’t view the entire set of a customer’s products and services on one screen. They need to wrap their brains around the fact that to be successful with target marketing or segmentation, a customer’s name, address, and birth date simply don’t cut the mustard.

The diagram below starts from the inside out. It paints the picture for executives that customer data is evolution and not revolution and that—as with most successful business accomplishments—it involves a deliberate approach. A customer who doesn’t exist can’t buy a product. You can’t mail the customer an offer if you don’t know where he lives. A customer can’t abandon a shopping cart if she isn’t in the store. You get the idea.

 

 

I know what you’re thinking. This is too simple. Now think back to when you’ve tried to explain the importance of structured business requirements processes or logical data models to your executives. Now accept the word “simple.” Make friends with it. Kiss it on the lips.

The strategic value of integrating social media behaviors into a high-value customer’s profile notwithstanding, our business leaders need to understand that delivering customer data is incremental, and that ultimately the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. And, like the deployment of data, investment in that data should also be incremental. And, when done right, information that’s meaningful, clean, and re-usable represents nothing less than a competitive advantage.