The Importance of Marketing Data
In 2019 your business must have digital marketing efforts to stay competitive.
Maybe you’ve dabbled in Google ads. Maybe you’ve tried a boosted post or two. Maybe you’re boosting every post, just so people will actually get to see it! Trying digital marketing is a must for businesses of all sizes, but once you start you need to keep track of how it’s working for you. This blog post will cover why marketing data is important, and how to keep track of it to ensure you’re using your marketing budget as effectively as possible.
What is marketing data?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty with testing and tracking, it’s helpful to understand what exactly marketing data covers. Marketing data is both a source of customer insights, as well as proof that your marketing efforts are helpful for you with a positive return on investment (ROI).
It’s generated from web, social media, as well as email interactions and engagement to help you form predictions about future customer behaviors. The data you collect can include information such as where your customers are coming from, which messaging is most effective, and if your marketing dollars were well spent.
All of this information can help you to make sure that the time and money you’re spending on marketing is well worth it! And, if something isn’t working you can move around your budget to focus on your most effective efforts. The end goal here is to enhance and personalize the customer experience.
If you’re still unsure of why marketing data is important to your business, keep in mind that this information can be used in many different areas! It can fit in your business strategy with retargeting, advertising, email campaigns, social media posts, and the information you share on your website.
Different types of testing
Part of collecting marketing data, and ensuring that your results are effective is testing! As marketers, we’re always testing so that we know for sure if a type of ad, social platform, or image works well with the target audience. There are many different ways you can test your marketing efforts!
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the benchmark you use to measure how well you are meeting your goals. Measuring if you are meeting (or not meeting) your KPIs allows you to modify your marketing. Some essential KPIs to track are sales revenue, your click-through rate and cost per conversion, your ROI, and your reach.
- A/B Testing is a marketing experiment where you split your audience to test different parts of a campaign, to determine what performs best. For example, showing a different image on an ad, using different subject lines on email blasts, or different ad formats. Most digital marketing platforms (like Facebook or MailChimp) have built-in options to make A/B testing super easy.
- Online Surveys are questionnaires that your customers can complete over the Internet. You can use surveys to get feedback on your products and customer service as well as gauge employee satisfaction.
- Competitor Benchmarking is comparing how your company stacks up against your major competitors. You use metrics such as engagement rate, the frequency of posting, types of content, and growth rate to gain a level of insight. When you know what your competitors are up to you have the information you need to stand out!
- Segmentation is separating your potential customers in groups based on different characteristics. The four main types of market segmentation are geographic, demographic, behavioral, and psychographics. The results of the testing methods mentioned above can be used to see how different segments react.
Marketing Data Platforms
One of the most popular online analytics platforms (to give you all those helpful insights) is Google Analytics. With Google Analytics, you’re able to see how many are visiting your website, how much time they’ve spent on a page, your bounce rate, what devices they’re using when on your site, and so much more. With their tracking tools, you can evaluate the traffic flow on your site and set goals, plus Google Analytics is free to use! We can’t stress enough that if you have a website, you need Google analytics set up!
Social sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter also offer their own analytics. When you know how well each social network is working you can focus your social media marketing more effectively!
Facebook “Insights” (their name for analytics) allows you to see how your content is performing. Their page summary includes how many actions were taken on your page, the number of page likes, your post(s) reach, post engagements, your page responsiveness, and more.
Instagram “Insights” allows business accounts to measure the actions taken on their page and see how many users saw their content and where it was found. Instagram also shows the most popular of your followers’ locations, their age range, gender, and the average day/time they’re usually on Instagram.
Benefits of Marketing Data
With the rise of digital marketing, tracking your marketing data is an absolute must. The ability to collect and calculate this data allows insight into what is working, what can be improved, the returns on your methods, and how can you keep your customers happy.
- Improving the Efficiency of your Marketing: Convey the right message to the right audience at the right time. Understanding marketing data allows you to personalize your campaign that converts leads through a deeper understanding of customers.
- Better Product Development: Data-driven marketing diminishes product failure rates. With a better understanding of your target audience, you gain a better understanding of how to develop products and services that your audience is dying to buy.
- Developing Customer Loyalty: According to Salesforce, 52% of customers are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize their communications with them. Analyzing your data will help you identify your most loyal and most profitable customers. You can single them out for treatment that demonstrates your appreciation of them with coupons, behind the scenes info and more!
- Predict what may happen in the future: With marketing data, you can start to anticipate your consumer’s behavior. Utilize the data to retain customers and push leads further down the sales funnel.