Are You Using Data to Improve Your Marketing Plan?

Data-driven marketing should be considered one of the most important elements when thinking about your overall approach to reaching customers.

According to a study released by Forbes Insights in association with Turn, two-thirds of senior marketers strongly agree that data-driven marketing is crucial to success within a hyper-competitive global economy.

A marketer needs to better understand who has purchased or interacted with a brand historically to help plan for the future — think of the term “Know your audience!”

The right type of data can help form the strategies and actions surrounding the growth of site traffic, lead generation, customer acquisition, sales and more.

Data can also help tailor the creative message, find a more relevant potential customer in real time, determine the appropriate spend, identify the right channels and even adjust the overall campaign objective.

An initial step would be to ask some questions:

  • What do you have?
  • What do you want?
  • What can you afford to buy?

You need to identify what type of information you have access to. What type of first-party data have you been able to collect from existing customers?

If you don’t have the information you want, do you know of a trusted data partner that can help get you the right data points? You also have the opportunity to purchase data through third-party sources that can help mold the marketing execution. Don’t forget — you can always better understand what insights partners can provide once an execution has taken place. This information can always be applied to future initiatives.

Data quality is also something to consider. What information is most valuable to you and what resources are you using to acquire it? Integrating the data you have can also be executed. Larger companies with multiple departments can have various pipelines of data. Think about ways to integrate your data sets to look at everything from a more holistic view.

Using quality data has been proven to benefit marketing plans time and time again. Being in front of your target audience at the right time and in the right place is only going help your team achieve the overall campaign goals and objectives. Use these important data resources to help you get there. And remember: Once you’ve applied these data sets and executed your campaign, think about how you are going to monitor performance and the benefits of the data used.

 

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Source link: http://www.forbes.com/forbesinsights/data-driven_and_customer-centric/index.html