Embracing a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy
In today’s digital age, data is more important than ever before. And yet, many marketers still rely on intuition, and a gut feeling to make decisions. While there’s nothing wrong with going with your gut sometimes, the fact is that data should be the foundation of your marketing strategy.
Data allows you to track what’s working, and what’s not. It allows you to see the bigger picture, and make more informed decisions.
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What is Data and Why is it Important?
Data is simply information that can be analyzed and used to make decisions. In marketing, data comes from a variety of sources, including website analytics, social media platforms, surveys, and more. Why is data important? There are a few reasons why data is so important in marketing.
First, as we mentioned before, data allows you to track what’s working and what’s not. Second, data allows you to see the bigger picture. You can look at trends over time, and see how your marketing efforts are impacting your overall business goals. Finally, data allows you to make more informed decisions.
Types of Data
Data is the lifeblood of any good marketing campaign. Without data, marketers would be flying blind, unsure of whether their campaigns are actually reaching their target audience or causing them to tune out.
There are a few different types of data that are particularly important for marketers to know and understand.
Sales Data
Sales data is the backbone of any good business strategy. Whether you’re trying to figure out pricing or identify which products to promote, sales data is an essential piece of the puzzle. Of course, it’s not enough to just know how many units you’ve sold.
You also need to know where those sales are coming from. Are they coming from your website, or from brick-and-mortar stores? Knowing the answer to this question can help you focus your efforts on the most effective channels.
Competitive Data
If you’re in business, then you’re in competition. And if you’re in competition, then you need to know what your competitors are up to. That’s where competitive data comes in. Competitive data is information on what your competitors are doing. This can be useful for understanding their strategies, and seeing where you can improve your own offerings. Of course, collecting competitive data can be a challenge.
Fortunately, there are a number of resources that can help you get the information you need. online forums, industry publications, and even trade shows can all be valuable sources of competitive intelligence. So if you want to stay ahead of the competition, make sure to keep an eye on the competition’s activities.
Marketing Data
Marketing data is simply information that’s collected about your marketing activities. This can include everything from the number of impressions your ad received to the conversion rate of your email campaign.
By tracking this data, you can get a better understanding of what’s working and what’s not. This, in turn, can help you optimize your campaigns for better results. So if you’re not already tracking your marketing data, now is the time to start. It could be the key to improving your campaigns and achieving your marketing goals.
Customer Data
Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. They’re the ones who keep you afloat, and if you don’t understand them, then you’re in trouble.
That’s where customer data comes in. By understanding who your customers are, where they come from, and what they’re interested in, you can better serve their needs. You can also use this information for things like targeted marketing, or understanding your customer base. In other words, customer data is essential for any business that wants to stay afloat.
Website Data
Website data can be a valuable tool for understanding how people are using your site. By tracking page views and click-through rates, you can get a sense of which content is most popular with your audience.
You can also use data to identify areas where people are having difficulty navigating your site, or where they’re dropping off altogether. By taking the time to analyze your website data, you can make sure that your site is user-friendly and informative, helping you to attract and retain more visitors.
Become More Data-Driven
How can you become more data-driven? The first step is to start tracking everything. Every time you run an ad or publish a piece of content, make sure to track the results. This will give you a good starting point for understanding what’s working and what’s not. Are people responding well to your content? Are they engaging with it? One way to tell if people are responding well to your content is to look at the comments and social shares. If people are regularly sharing your content, it’s a good sign that they’re enjoying it.
Another way to become more data-driven is to A/B test your campaigns. This means running two different versions of an ad or piece of content and seeing which one performs better. For example, you could test two different headlines to see which one gets more clicks, or test two different graphics. A/B testing is a great way to fine-tune your campaigns and make sure that you’re getting the most out of them. A/B testing also allows you to test different hypotheses to see what works best for your audience.
Data-Driven Decision Examples
Making a data-driven decision might look like this.
Let’s say you have a goal to increase website traffic from Facebook. The first step is to check your website data to see where your current traffic is coming from. Then compare this to your sales data to see if there’s a correlation between website traffic and sales. Based on this data, you might decide to run a Facebook ad campaign with the campaign objective of website traffic.
Had you not looked into the data, you very well could have missed an opportunity to increase sales by driving traffic from Facebook to your website!
Here’s another example of a data-driven decision.
Your goal is to improve your website’s conversion rate. To do this, you check your website data to see where people are dropping off. You identify which pages have the highest drop-off rates. Based on this data, you might decide to redesign those pages or add more content to them. By making decisions based on data, you can improve your website’s performance and achieve your goals.
Collecting The Data
You might be thinking, where is all this data stored and how can I access it? The answer is, it depends. Some data, like website data, can be accessed through Google Analytics. Other data, like customer data, might be stored in a CRM (customer relationship management) system. And competitive data can sometimes be found through research or by using tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner.
There are plenty of tools to help you collect and analyze data such as:
- Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter also have their own Insights tools that show you how well your content is performing.
- Free online tools such as Hootsuite Insights can help you track your social media metrics.
- If you want to take things a step further, you can also invest in marketing software that will give you more detailed data and insights into your campaigns. This might be a good option if you’re running complex campaigns or if you want to track multiple channels at once.
- Surveys are another great way to collect data. You can use surveys to gather feedback from your customers or target audience. Tools like Google Surveys make it easy to create and distribute surveys.
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Optimize Your Business Data
In today’s competitive landscape, companies that are able to use data to make informed decisions have a clear advantage over those that rely on guesswork and intuition. The most important thing is to simply start. Begin by tracking key metrics and evaluating your results on a regular basis.
As you become more comfortable with using data, you can begin to experiment with different techniques and fine-tune your approach. With a little practice, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can transform your business into a data-driven machine!
NLC can help you visualize your data so you can create stunning case studies and reports that will wow your boss (or clients). Contact us today to get started!