Data is key to reaching the right customers at the right time, who are in the right frame of mind. Saleem Khan, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Discovery Data, speaks with Robert Lutton, Vice President, Sandhill Consultants about the impact of good-quality intent data, Discovery Data’s role, and the need for CDOs to collaborate internally.

Khan sheds light on how companies are successfully driving revenue and key business value outcomes by leveraging Discovery Data products. He says that some customers have been reaping around a 30x return on their initial investment in the data. 

“We’re finding that the intent data is a huge value driver for many of our customers, especially if you’re a large asset manager and you’re looking to distribute products to broker-dealers. It helps knowing beforehand if an advisor or a broker-dealer is interested in an energy ETF or an ESG-related ETF, and being able to target them before your competition,” Khan says.

The other big value driver that he highlights is in the diversity space. For example, targeting people of Korean descent that speak Korean, in the Los Angeles area, because that community as a whole is growing in affluence in that particular region. One of Discovery Data’s customers ran an email campaign based on Discovery Data’s data instead of running a print ad and witnessed significantly higher conversion rates using email.

“Our data can be used from a sales and marketing standpoint or even from a recruiting standpoint. There are some very large areas where we can add value for our customers,” Khan adds.

Sharing his thoughts on some of the data-related challenges and how to best address them, he says that some of the challenges customers face are in the accuracy and completeness of the data. “Discovery Data is not the only company that provides this sort of information,” he adds. “We do have competitors but we focus on the quality, the veracity of our data. “So, that’s one of the key areas where customers look at us for being the bellwether, guiding them through the collection of accurate contact information.” 

Khan further shares advice for data leaders to help them unlock value and produce more insights for their business. He emphasizes the need for CDOs to partner with their internal chief marketing officer, chief product officer, and CEO.

“I joke that half my job is data, the other half is marketing the data. You need to understand who the audience is that’s willing to buy this information, what their needs are, and make sure that the data is meeting the customer and not the other way around,” he says.

Khan says that the leadership team at Discovery Data is cross-functional, so the CEO can wear the hat of a CDO, and then the CMO can be the CTO. “Having those cross-functional capabilities is key to being successful,” he concludes.