“We have to appeal on a personal level.” We hear this with increasing frequency from today’s modern entrepreneurs, who’s putting customer centricity and personalisation in the heart of their programmes in a time-poor, competition-heavy, electronic atmosphere.
In response to such requirements, marketing software developers have handed entrepreneurs the keys, creating solutions and tools that produce a wealth of data waiting to be tapped . But how can you know which piece of this data puzzle is the most important in specific situations? How do you understand what types of data would function best across different channels?
The age of big data has been around us for a time, and there’s no doubt that digital programs have opened up enormous opportunities for marketers to comprehend the drivers behind market engagement, behavior and trades regardless of the channel. But the challenge for marketers today can be found in the capability to perform out how to be more strategic with the info that they gather and access.
Before tackling the potentially intimidating big data obstacle, we have to consider and assess the types of data we have in our hands and the way to use that data to best effect:
1. Create your data sets
To be able to browse the huge data battle, brands should first take into consideration the information they have available and how it can inform their marketing plan. The easiest way to split down this would be by dividing data sets into three categories:
First-party data: This can be your data collected from the activities or behaviors of visitors to your site together with data in your customer relationship management (CRM) systems, social media data, subscription data, or data info gleaned from mobile sites or programs.
Second-party data: This is somebody else’s first-party data which you can use to help achieve your marketing objectives. By way of example, you can form a mutually beneficial relationship with another company whereby you each share your individual first-party data.
Third-party data: This information is merged from sites and social networking platforms other than your own. Third-party data helps entrepreneurs reach a wider audience, and if used along with a campaign, helps marketers reach diverse and targeted audience groups.
By analysing and assessing what kind of consumer information is the most significant — first, second or third party – entrepreneurs can identify which data pools will best advise their campaigns. For example, third party social data may be useful should you have to conduct market research just before a product or service launch.
Whereas first-party data will be critical when sending clients targeted Christmas mails with present recommendations or revenue purchases based on preceding browsing behavior and buy history. Whatever data you opt to use, once armed with this info brands may then invent targeted strategies which will resonate with different audiences.
2. Establish goals using a data audit
Before you do anything with that data, it is essential that you specify your marketing goals via a data audit. This will ascertain if company data is fit for purpose and should look at all marketing channels, for example, website, CRM, transactional, business intelligence, mobile sites and applications, email and social media.
As the old adage goes’garbage in, garbage out’ When you have poor quality information, but you haven’t conducted an audit to discover this, then your output — i.e. your marketing campaign and the ROI it accomplishes — will endure.
At the start of your data audit, and also to maximise the value of this information gleaned about your viewers, define the aims of your initiative from the return. For example, if a engine company is looking to optimise the website experience for visitors, they could offer up more purposeful segmentation by tailoring the landing page for specific clients based on their profiles — for example promoting saloon cars to households with two or more children and a mid-level salary.
Defining goals in this manner means brands can evaluate the valuable data which will affect the organisation’s performance and profits.
3. Be truthful with where You’re in the data kingdom
So you’ve created your data collections, set some goals, and conducted a data audit. What next? Be honest with what point you are at. In other words, you will not be able to advance to the next stage — putting your information into actions — without going through a process of tweaking and finessing.
Don’t be afraid of a’data cleanse’ if your information isn’t accurate. You may only get out what you install. If your databases have been segregated, integration is vital. You may have quality information, but if it sits in siloes, then you will not be able to glean a single view of your client and marketing choices will be piecemeal rather than fully informed.
If your data is good and connected, then consider taking things one step farther and turn your information into meaningful marketing actions to increase performance.
To tame the monster that is big data, marketers need to be strategic and considered in their strategy rather than jump in mind first. When customers expect brands to comprehend their interests and preferences, data is crucial for brands to talk to those folks at a personal level. But the data must be clean, of top quality and incorporated before it can provide any real impact to a marketing effort.
Building personalised relationships doesn’t rely solely on the number of information captured, but instead how carefully chosen information is tapped and used. The most successful companies will not be people who collect the most information, but rather the ones who collect the right information and use it most effectively.
