Data is at the heart of all of today’s marketing initiatives. Corporations are increasingly relying on data to learn about customers, invest in new products and services, adjust sales and marketing activities, and assess new market opportunities. During a March 2015 poll by Econsultancy in association with ResponseTap, 98% of client-side marketers on a worldwide basis stated that data (as part of a single customer view and/or to feed broader customer insight) was important (25%) or critical (73%) to making sense of the customer journey.

This article discusses the challenges that marketers face in today’s data-driven world. Next week, you will hear about the strategies that marketing service providers should pursue to help clients effectively use data. Given the importance of data to your customer base, it’s time to define your role and assess how you can help your clients step up to the data challenge.

In the Quality Data Benchmark Report published by Experian in January 2015, 99% of the organizations surveyed said that some form of data was critical to marketing success. Contact data topped the list, but data related to sales, demographics, behaviors, and consumer preferences was also critical to the mix.