Data-Driven Decisions is a new limited-series marketing podcast presented by Convince & Convert and shared with our Social Pros listeners.

What happens when marketing truly takes the driver's seat with data and insights? In this episode, we hear from Jenn Chase, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President at SAS, a company that operates with a data-first culture.

Translating Data into Meaningful Insights

Jenn explains what insights SAS focuses on from a marketing perspective and how that helps her team and other departments work together to drive results. She talks about the different types of surveys and brand studies that SAS conducts to collect data both internally and externally, plus the impact that has on working toward business goals.

For SAS, it’s clear that data is embedded in its culture, but for that data to be useful, it needs context. Jenn’s team makes an effort to translate that data into insights that matter for different departments, including sales and finance. 

Jenn also shares some examples of clients SAS works with and how they have transformed how they use data to enhance the customer experience with personalization. In a cookie-less world, brands need to think outside the box when it comes to collecting data, but Jenn shares some top tips for companies to get started.

In This Episode:

• 1:30 - The vision that Jenn adopted when taking on her role at SAS
• 2:45 - The insights that SAS’s marketing team provides the rest of the company
• 5:42 - How Jenn encourages her team to drive value of marketing across the organization
• 7:44 - The art to connecting the dots across the organization on ROI
• 9:36 - How Jen builds strong relationships with other teams
• 11:43 - The importance of marketing, sales, and finance learning each other’s languages
• 13:48 - How SAS uses data to help clients better serve customers
• 16:08 - Jenn shares an example of a beauty retailer who transformed their data strategy
• 19:05 - Why we’ll see the evolution of commercial industries thanks to better data management
• 19:56 - How SAS is helping sports organizations with data  
• 21:32 - Helping clients take a customer-driven approach with data
• 22:48 - How brands can get ahead in a cookie-less future
• 24:50 - Why brand personas are crucial
• 28:02 - Advice for organizations who are beginning to use data  
• 31:19 - Why we need to democratize data
• 35:45 - How SAS strikes the balance between being data-driven and human-centric decision-making 

 Quotes:

“From a B2B perspective, we understand that we need to meet our buyer, not just as their work persona, but recognize that they live in a broader world, and you can reach them in a more personal way.”

“Start with the end in mind. What are the questions that you want to be able to answer about your customers that you can't today? Really paint a vision for what the end state could look like and how it can have business impact."

“It’s imperative we know not only the demographics but also the psychographics of those personas so that you understand what's motivating them and then making sure that that information is fed into a creative brief so that all of the content that you create downstream as part of an integrated campaign is based on what that persona wants.”

Resources:

• Connect with Jenn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennchase/
• SAS: https://www.sas.com/en_gb/home.html

Purchase the book at koganpage.com/datadrivenpersonalization (use code CCData20 for 20% off and free shipping in the UK and US) and sign up for more content at convinceandconvert.com.