Why Data-Driven Marketing Strategies?

Data-driven marketing has become a popular phrase among entrepreneurs, especially with the development of big data. For users and business owners alike, there has never been an easier time to satisfy one’s curiosity. Users can look up nearly everything online, which means business owners can do so as well. Data is being collected, stored and updated with every stroke of the keyboard, and every click of a mouse. It is everywhere and, in this technological age, data is power.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners who know how to understand data, draw conclusions from it and leverage it to make decisions are the most successful. This is because tracking and analysing data leads to conclusions that are fact-based — numbers don’t lie. In addition, data changes alongside with your audience. A great example of this is the shift of UK advertising spend from TV and desktops to smartphones.

Currently

73% of all UK video ad spend goes towards smartphones because that’s where users are spending their time. When user preferences change or when they’re partial towards a certain product or marketing channel, it shows in the data. Understanding how to read that shift and comply with market demands is what will bring significant positive results for your brand. It’s the age old lesson of adapt or die. In this blog post, we’ll go over some data-driven strategies that will help your business survive and thrive.

Let’s get started

Understanding the Benefits of Data-Driven Marketing:

Before we dive into the best data-driven tactics to help your business grow, we’ll first explain some of the key advantages of data driven marketing. Savvy marketers understand that in today’s day and age, it isn’t enough to know how to use certain marketing tactics; you need to understand why as well.

For most marketing managers, understanding why you need to use certain tactics and why you need to let go of others is the difference between staying exactly where they are and taking a turn for the best. It comes down to the fact that giving context to your marketing strategy makes all the difference to your bottom line. Going back to the advantages:

1.Cut Costs:

Fortune 1000 Executives see big data as a valuable tool that helps their businesses cut unnecessary costs and decrease expenses. Understanding the various revenue streams of your business and where your company is spending unnecessarily could help increase your bottom line significantly.

2.Greater Audience Analysis:

With the help of big data, you can draw insights from audience behaviour that you wouldn’t have been able to discover otherwise. You can use this information to make more specified marketing campaigns and create more attractive and relevant products and services. In fact, 78% of marketers today use data to gain insights about their audience, which is more than double the amount of marketers who turned to data in 2013.

3.Customer Experience:

Investing in user experience tools will not only provide deeper insights about your audiences behaviour, you’ll also be able to figure out how to better service them so they can have more engaging and interesting experiences while interacting with your business. This is especially important for fashion eCommerce because it’s a crucial factor in customer retention. Improving your customer experience will not only improve engagement but it should also increase your conversion rate which will help your business grow.

4.Business Trajectory:

By following your data, you’ll always have a map. You’ll be able to constantly adjust and adapt your business to fulfil the needs of your customers. While making small decisions like what content to post on social media based upon a documented content marketing strategy may seems minute, those judgments can make a big impact for your audience.

5.Corporate Agenda:

Following data, you’ll also be able to help make a huge impact for your brand as a whole. Over a quarter (29%) of marketers agree that helping achieve the overall objectives of the company is one of the most challenging questions marketers face today. With the help of data, you can clearly show your superiors how the marketing team is using that information to further corporate objectives and create a better bottom line.

Think about your marketing plan like a science report from secondary school. In the same way you wrote out your research and findings from data, you’re now using insights and making decisions based on data. You’re making direct correlations to what is shown in the numbers. In doing so, you’re creating a conclusion that will help your business.

Moving Onto the Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade for Data-Driven Marketing:

Digital marketers love tools. Let’s be frank, without tools like Hootsuite, SEMrush and Buzzsumo, some digital marketers would be lost. Whatever your holy grail list of tools are, get ready to add a couple more to the list. These are our top picks for helping marketers use data to grow their business:

1. Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is an essential tool for digital marketers. It’s a free solution that helps marketers collect, monitor and analyse data for nearly all platforms on every channel. It also allows you to track custom metrics and download tailored reports to further identify audience insights.

You can learn everything, from where your users are coming from to what they’re buying and why they’re leaving. Google Analytics may seem like the obvious tool for everyone. According to BuiltWith, of the 348 million websites that it tracks, only 29.3 million use Google Analytics, which is a mere 8.4%. This is one bandwagon that you need to hop on if you’re looking to create a strong data driven marketing plan.

Spend Time and Effort Setting Up Google Analytics

It maybe free but it still needs some love and attention to ensure you have data that is accurate and reliable.

2. Google Search Console:

Another essential and fee tool brought to you by Google. The Search Console helps you improve your performance on Google Search by optimising your content with search analytics to see which queries are bringing the most users to your site. You can also receive email alerts in real-time in case any issues arise on your site, allowing you to curb any negative side effects and fix SEO problems as soon as possible.

3. Crazy Egg:

Founded by marketing maven Neil Patel, Crazy Egg is another great tool that will help your team collect data to gain better insights into what your audience is and isn’t attracted to on your website. It creates web page snapshots of user activity that shows marketers where their audience is spending the most time. This is particularly great for fashion eCommerce companies looking to figure out which products sell better than others. Crazy Egg also allows marketers to A/B test in real time so you always know whether it has the return you want, or if you need to go back to the drawing board.

4. BuzzSumo:

BuzzSumo has grown to be one of the key tools marketers use to generate and enhance their content. With their content insight software, BuzzSumo gives its users actionable insights that show what kind of content is trending across a brand’s channels. You can go even deeper and filter content by type, domain, length, headlines, date published and more.

5. Optimizely:

Optimizely is a haven for curious marketers who have ideas they want to test. Built for cross-collaboration with product and marketing teams, it helps improve your brand’s ROI with its patented Stats Engine Technology. With Optimizely, you can run multiple experiments on the same page simultaneously and deliver targeted content in real time. You can also create personalised experiments for users who have exhibited interesting behaviour and collect data you can understand and use to help your business grow.

6. HubSpot:

HubSpot has been the chosen inbound marketing platform for many entrepreneurs and small businesses to grow their brand and marketing strategy. It guides marketers from beginning to end. Helping you understand how to attract, retain and maintain customers, HubSpot helps your content gain visibility and increase ROI. You can design your own responsive website without any prior coding experience and gain access to top tier creative digital agency SEO best practices.

7. MailChimp:

Built for growing businesses, MailChimp is an email marketing and automation tool that works with over 300 apps and services. From designing, sending and saving email templates, to creating social newsletters, sign up forms and landing pages, MailChimp gives you the tools you need to segment and personalise your audience, report what’s happening, and test what your efforts are producing.

These tools, designed by marketers for marketers to empower them and help their brands get in touch with their target audiences (plus they deliver real results), are some of the top picks across the industry. If you’re unsure as to how much you want to invest in your marketing tools, begin by using the free trials to get your feet wet.

The Wrap-Up:

Now that you’ve seen the benefits of using data and how it can positively impact your business, and now that you have the tools to make it happen, the last step is to just do it. By using data to make informed business decisions, you can keep your team on a track to success and drive positive results for your brand.

The Benefits of Using a Data Driven Marketing Strategy:

1. Data helps your team determine where you can save money and cut costs.

2. You can gain a deeper understanding of your audience and learn how to create more attractive and relevant content.

3. Audience insight also help your team craft a more engaging customer experience.

4. By following data you will always have a clear business trajectory.

5. Data driven plans will help your team show your senior management that you’re expanding the business and increasing ROI.

The Best Tools Your Team Can Use To Make It All Happen:

Google Analytics

• This solution provides a comprehensive analysis of your website’s performance and visitor behaviour.

Search Console

• Google’s excellent free tool for monitoring SEO performance and identifying problems with your SEO configuration that need fixing.

Crazy Egg

• Get this great if you want deeper audience insights on user behaviour.

Optimizely

• Learn how to run tests on your website and determine which of your marketing strategies has the best ROI.

BuzzSumo

• For marketers who want to create content like a top notch creative digital agency.

HubSpot

• The digital tool to get beginning to end guidance on how to attract, maintain and retain users.

MailChimp

• An enterprise email and marketing automation tool that meets the needs of most marketers.

Cheers and good luck!