Data Driven Marketing
It doesn’t take too much research to understand that marketing has experienced a fundamental shift over the past few years. Marketing is no longer just about
communicating the value of your products. It is about engaging in conversation, and its success is directly correlated to how closely businesses listen; using integrated technology to connect with existing and potential customers, to understand their behaviours, and to present an effective solution. In a competitive landscape where customers are better informed than ever, organisations need to embrace a customer-centric approach to marketing, driven by quantitative data.
What is Data Driven Marketing?
In its simplest form, data-driven marketing refers to collecting and analysing consumer data, and applying that knowledge to a marketing strategy. Analysing consumer engagements and interactions enables businesses to make predictions about the future, and therefore optimise their marketing efforts.
The principle of data-driven marketing is focused upon an optimised and personal customer experience. With little understanding of the consumer, traditional marketing has often revolved around communicating the value of a company’s products or services to as wide an audience as possible. In contrast, the model of data driven marketing enables organisations to adopt a much more customer-centric approach, which is personalised and targeted.
Why Data Driven Marketing?
By analysing consumer behaviour, data driven marketing enables organisations to create a map of the customer journey, which in turn addresses three fundamental questions for any business:
Who are your customers?
How do you optimise the customer journey?
How do you reduce the stages of the sales process to drive revenue?
This knowledge enables businesses to tailor each step of the sales cycle with meaningful conversations and personalised, timely interactions.
When implemented successfully, adopting a more segmented and customer-focused approach to marketing enables businesses to:-
Deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time
Create customised campaigns
Segment target audiences clearly
Leverage data across multiple channels
Create fully integrated processes and solutions
Refine the customer experience
Develop products and services based on customer needs and requirements
Optimise ROI by effectively allocating marketing resources
Challenges with Data Driven Marketing
As with any valuable business strategy, data-driven marketing does not come without it’s challenges. The first stumbling block for many organisations is the sheer size and variety of data sources- which are constantly evolving. Every business has data in some shape or form, but it is usually in such great volume that understanding how to analyse it efficiently is difficult. The increasing sources of data also mean that deriving a simple conclusion is almost impossible. Gone are the days of the old spreadsheet model, and in its place, are much more sophisticated systems that discover complex patterns that require further validation.
It is also important to consider that whilst data-driven marketing has the ability to provide a 360-degree view of the customer journey, even the most mature systems struggle to make meaningful connections to what steps actually influence it and in what ways. Today’s consumers are more connected than ever, and as such there are so many variables to consider; almost every customer takes a separate path with numerous touch points, so the customer journey is complex, and the resulting data is diverse.
eWavelength have successfully created and implemented marketing strategies and campaigns for companies across the globe. If you need any information about how we can help your business, please contact the eWavelength team on info@ewavelength.com.