Data Enablement

Making Data more Accessible, Usable, and Actionable

What is Data Enablement?

Data enablement in marketing research refers to the process of organizing, integrating, and making data easily accessible and usable for uncovering insights, decision-making, and improving market development strategies.  It’s about making sure that your organization can use high-quality data effectively to learn about how customers behave, how markets are changing, and how well campaigns are performing.

CMI’s Data Enablement Strategy includes 7 key steps:

  1. Data Collection Framework
    • Identify key data sources (e.g., surveys, CRM systems, digital analytics, social media).
    • Ensure methods are in place for ongoing, quality data capture.
  2. Data Management Strategy
    • Establish how different data types (structured/unstructured, first/third-party) will be consolidated.
    • Use data platforms to unify data.
  3. Data Governance & Compliance
    • Define rules around data quality, security, privacy, and compliance (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
    • Assign data ownership and stewardship roles.
  4. Data Strategy/Technology Stack Alignment
    • Choose and deploy tools for data storage, visualization (e.g., Power BI, Tableau), and analysis (e.g., SPSS, R, Python).
    • Integrate with marketing automation and CRM systems.
  5. Enablement
    • Empower marketing teams with access to dashboards, data tools, and training so they can explore data independently.
    • Provide documentation and support resources.
  6. Insight Generation Processes
    • Set up processes for turning data into insights—e.g., segmentations, predictive models, campaign analysis.
    • Standardize research reporting templates, customer analytics and key metrics (KPIs).
  7. Measurement, Optimization & Business Growth Strategies
    • Define how success will be measured (e.g., increased speed to insights, improved ROI).
    • Continuously refine the strategy based on outcomes and feedback.
analyzing charts and graphs on a laptop

A Real-World Example:Data Enablement Strategy Case Study

Company: B2B Tech Provider
Objective: Increase customer acquisition, build customer loyalty, and reduce costs

Data Enablement Strategy:

  • Integration: A comprehensive evaluation and data merge across key customer touchpoints, including sales and account management.
  • Access: Built dashboards for client to explore customer segments.
  • Outcome: Lowered costs by utilizing other channels more fully.  Moved 200,000 customers from a field sales rep to a call center rep.  Usage of the website was fully expanded in several areas.

Without a clear data enablement strategy, even organizations with rich data sources struggle to extract meaningful insights. A solid strategy ensures data becomes a strategic asset, not a bottleneck.  Data enablement helps marketing researchers move from raw data to real insights faster and more reliably. It supports better targeting, personalization, campaign measurement, and business growth strategies.

Let’s talk about what it takes to build a modern, scalable data enablement strategy for your organization.

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