In modern times, the vast quantity of data available can provide businesses with insights into everything from customer behavior to the success of their latest advertising campaign. Below are the key ways in which data has driven fundamental changes in the world of online marketing and how you can use these changes to your advantage.
Types Of Data Used In Marketing
The main forms of data that can be analyzed and used to create or optimize a marketing strategy are identity, engagement, behavioral and attitudinal data.
Identity data is simple information that can be used to build up useful customer profiles, and it includes details such as a customer’s name, gender, age, address, job title, and social media handles. Engagement data (also known as interaction data) gives you information on the way in which customers are engaging with your business or brand and the actions that they take as part of that engagement. For example, this data will allow you to see how many customers are contacting you by email as compared to via telephone and how they interact with the posts you make on social media.
Behavioral data drills down further into these engagement actions; this set of data enables you to view abandoned shopping carts and purchase history, helping you to build a more detailed overview of your customers and their buying (or non-buying) behavior. Finally, attitudinal data measures how your customers feel about your business or brand and the way in which they perceive it. This set of data can be the trickiest to collect and to measure – online reviews and feedback forms are the primary means of capturing this information.
Customer Relationship Management Systems
The development and now prevalence of CRM (customer relationship management) systems within businesses are a direct result of the sheer volume of data available and make for innovative use of this information to enhance the selling and lead generation processes.
As well as using customer and business data to provide growth and sales forecasting, a CRM provides vital support for sales teams, such as tools to automate marketing campaigns and manage global sales and service provision. Click here now for more information on an example of a popular CRM package, which also features customization options as well as a reporting dashboard that allows you to get information from all parts of your organization in real-time. Take a look at the pricing options to get an idea of what incorporating a CRM is likely to cost your business.
Data-Driven Marketing
Strategies determined by data and attendant analytics are now at the forefront of the majority of businesses’ marketing, with over 90% of retailers pointing to data management as their highest priority in terms of future marketing efforts.
Data-driven marketing is often used to create or enhance a holistic customer experience and ensure cohesion across a businesses’ various marketing, and retailing channels, as well as to provide an insight into the buying behaviors and habits of current customers or a new target audience – all of this has the underlying aim of boosting sales.
How To Use Data In Marketing
Before you do anything, first be clear about how you want the captured data to serve your business – what is the aim of collecting it? Once you’ve set out your objectives, plan how you will go about collecting this information. The next step is to decide on the data platform you wish to use to capture the data and then begin the process of gathering the information you need using this platform.
Depending on the size of your business, and the nature of your marketing plan, at this point, you may wish to assemble a small team to manage and analyze the data that’s been captured and organized and to act on it. Finally, once you’ve used the insights that the data has provided in your campaign, you will need to consistently and accurately track progress to monitor how effective the marketing drive is. Having a process for this is a good idea; think, too, about how you will implement any adjustments that need to be made as your campaign progresses.
Ethical Data Use
Of course, one of the side effects of the sheer availability of large amounts of data has been the need to create frameworks to ensure the ethical use of this information, which businesses need to operate within. This is vital for building a strong customer base too; consumers are increasingly demanding privacy and assurances that businesses are protecting their personal information and using it appropriately. Maintaining trust with clients is crucial in marketing and across the business board and can help to strengthen your brand.
The need to act within data laws has also meant that businesses are wise to consult with a lawyer or their in-house legal team before collecting and using data in a marketing campaign, both to avoid a potential lawsuit and so that they can be satisfied that they are acting ethically.
The Benefits Of Using Data To Inform Marketing Choices
And finally, four main ways using data can benefit your businesses online marketing strategy. Firstly, it helps you to be really clear about your target audience to the point of being able to accurately predict behavior. Secondly, the insights provided by large-scale data collection allow your business to make more meaningful connections with both your current audience and potential new customers. Effectively, experiences tailored to a specific customer can be delivered en masse, and marketing drives can be adjusted to match a potential client’s engagement in real-time. This is an immensely powerful tool in the world of online marketing.
Thirdly, the era of data means that it’s not only new target audiences that can be identified; the channels through which to best reach them can be ascertained, too. Knowing which platforms perform the best for you in terms of marketing campaigns can streamline all elements of your marketing process and save you both time and resources. Lastly, data enables brands to personalize the experiences of their customers, which is key to retention and growth. Data can be used to identify exactly what features or points appeal to a target audience or specific client and which ones will have them abandoning their shopping cart – the latter is known as ‘pain points.’
Without a doubt, the ability to capture and interrogate vast swathes of data has changed online marketing forever, and new developments in this field are happening all the time. It’s served as a leveler, too: small businesses, as well as established enterprises, can now access the sort of information that can help them to both survive and thrive on the global stage.