Creating a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

Many entities worldwide understand how powerful and valuable that data is in the modern world, but the absence of a clear strategy leads to no advantages. Companies that understand what to do with data seek it valiantly and eagerly make plans that include data insights. Consider these steps to invent your own marketing strategy propelled by data insights.

Assemble a Solid Team to Define your Data Goals

If you plan to create an effective data driven marketing strategy, you must build a competent team with the capacity and drive to use data correctly. Once your team is established, you can consult them to define the data goals are most suitable to realize the company’s mission and simplify operations. Working with a knowledgeable data team has can save you tons of time, limit frustrations, and conserve financial resources. Ensuring that your marketing department communicates with the human resources and IT departments is imperative, or many of your marketing efforts may prove substandard or wasteful.

Determine What Data to Collect

Simply collecting a wide variety of data is not enough to build an efficient strategy for using it. Once you assemble your team, your company or organization as a whole must decide what types of data are most important to collect. Some significant data sources include current customer data, perspective consumer data, and social media analytics. The Harvard Business Review suggests that your company can collect data from rivals, and then use the information to gain better insights and perspectives with the application of competitive intelligence.

Not only is collecting data important, but deleting it is too. Blue Mail Media declares that “Marketing data degrades at the rate of 15-25% a month”. Managing the customer data that you have using proper data hygiene practices is essential to avoid harboring outdated, or useless data in storage. Doing so minimizes the amount of information that you have to focus on, and you can streamline your efforts to reach company goals and objectives faster without veering from the path.

Decide How the Data Can Be Used

Once you determine what kind of data is worth collecting, you must decide how that data will be used. If you intend to improve marketing efforts, you can run split testing to enhance website design, create better advertisements, and improve multiple aspects of the conversion funnel. For example, one company may collect birth dates to send out limited-time promotions to its customers once a year, while another may focus on the analyzing the primary age ranges within its consumer population to better design products and services to meet the needs of customers. The Digital Marketing Institute suggests that you can use data to revamp your content marketing strategy, carve out a new submarket for your products and services, and help consumers to overcome obstacles in the sales and conversion process.

Acquire the Proper Technologies for Organizing, Managing, and Protecting Data

Although there are many basic data tools and forms that you can use to start collecting streams of data from consumers, it is essential to integrate the appropriate technologies to organize and manage data properly. It can be a nightmare to discover that thousands of people have signed up as subscribers for a promotion or email campaign, only to find out that the data has been jumbled or mishandled by poorly integrated technology. To reduce the chances of losing or mishandling data, it is critical to set up the software effectively before any data collection programs and strategies are set in motion.

It is not uncommon for unscrupulous thieves to break into company systems to hijack sensitive data for their own use. Selecting data software that provides additional firewalls, encryption systems, and top-notch forms of data protection is crucial to ensure the safety and preservation of consumer, company, and employee data. In addition to utilizing data technologies, anyone that manages data must be able to use and secure data properly for the greatest advantage and defense of the company.

Examine Your Results Consistently

Data that is simply collected and left to gather dust cannot be maximized for current use. If you do not analyze the results of your data strategy, it may be nearly impossible to note if your company is making improvements, or not. To improve your data insights, you should execute split testing. Forbes suggests that A/B testing is the superior method of gathering quantifiable data to identify and create excellent value propositions for consumers. Examine the results of your tests to determine what changes need to be made to company operations, sales and marketing funnels, and the products and services that you wish to offer.

Companies that use data to enhance improve their marketing strategies can obtain a defined edge over the competition. Once you develop an exceptional data-driven marketing strategy, you can satisfy your current customers, attract new ones, and achieve greater success through your business or organization. Be sure to update your data technology accordingly and stay informed on the latest marketing trends to maintain an edge with strategic data collection and application.

Adam Richards

About Adam Richards

Adam Richards is a semi-retired business professional originally from Bangor, Maine. He spent the majority of his career in sales and marketing where he rose to the marketing lead of a Fortune 1000 company. He then moved on to helping people as a career counselor that specifically helped bring families to self-sufficiency through finding them rewarding careers. He has now returned to Bangor for his retirement and spends his free time writing. This blog will be about everything he learned throughout his career. He'll write on career, workplace, education and technology issues as well as on trends, changes, and advice for the Maine job market and its employers.