In a world where technology has become ubiquitous, it is no surprise that data-driven marketing has followed suit. This relatively new form of marketing uses consumer data to drive every decision, from product development to pricing and beyond.
For big brands, the appeal of data is clear – after all, who wouldn’t want to make decisions based on hard evidence? But what about for small businesses and startups? Surely they can’t afford the same level of data analysis as the corporate giants?
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. These days, there are plenty of affordable (or even free) tools that give small businesses access to the same kind of data that was once only available to major corporations. What’s more, thanks to today’s technology landscape, it’s easier than ever before to collect and analyze this data.
So if you are looking to get started with data-driven marketing but aren’t sure where to begin, read on for our top tips.
Understanding your data
Before you can start using data to inform your marketing decisions, you need to understand what kinds of data are out there and how they can be used.
To do this, you first need to understand your customer. Who are they? What do they like and dislike? What motivates them? Once you have a good understanding of your customer base, you can start thinking about the kind of data that will be most useful to you.
Here are some common data types that businesses use to inform their marketing decisions:
Demographic data
This type of data gives you information about who your customers are, such as their age, gender, location, income level, and so on. This can be useful for segmenting your audience and tailoring your marketing messages accordingly.
Psychographic data
This type of data gives you insights into your customers’ lifestyles, interests, and personality traits. This can be useful for creating more targeted marketing campaigns that appeal to specific segments of your audience.
For example, if you know that your target customer is an outdoorsy type who enjoys mountain biking on the weekends, you could create ads featuring products that would appeal to them.
Behavioral data
This type of data tells you what actions your customers have taken in the past – such as whether they’ve visited your website or made a purchase from your online store .This can be useful for identifying trends and understanding how your customers interact with your brand.
Once you’ve identified the types of data that will be most useful to you, it’s time to start collecting it. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools out there that can help you do just that.
Tools for collecting data
Here are some of the most frequently used tools for data gathering.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool that gives you detailed insights into your website traffic. It can show you where your visitors are coming from, what kinds of devices they’re using, and which pages they’re spending the most time on. This information can be helpful for everything from optimizing your website design to crafting more effective marketing campaigns.
Facebook Insights
Facebook Insights is a free tool that gives you detailed information about your Facebook page likes, reach, engagement, and other metrics . This information can be helpful for understanding how well your content performs and which types of posts are most popular with your audience. You can also use this data to create more targeted ads on Facebook .
Twitter Analytics
Twitter Analytics is a free tool that provides insights into tweets, retweets engagements, hashtag performances impressions and more. The platform breaks down each metric with handy graphs that show you how your tweets performed over time.
This data can be useful for understanding what types of content get the most engagement and which hashtag strategies are working best for you.
Buffer Analyze
Buffer Analyze is a paid tool that gives you detailed insights into your social media performance. It includes features like built-in A/B testing, heat maps , and click-through rates . This information can be helpful for optimizing your social media strategy and creating more effective content.
Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a paid tool that helps you track , analyze , and improve your website’s conversion rate. It includes features like email tracking, form analysis, and heatmaps. It may be usefull for understanding where people are dropping off in your sales funnel and how to improve conversion rates.
Now that you have a few tools to help you collect data, it’s time to start analyzing it. To do this effectively, you need to establish some goals for what you want to achieve with your data-driven marketing efforts. Once you have some specific goals in mind, it will be easier to identify the metrics that matter most to you.
Analyzing your data
As you start to collect data, it can be tempting to try and track everything at once. But more data isn’t necessarily better – in fact, it can just be overwhelming. That’s why it’s important to focus on the metrics that are most important to your business goals.
Here are some common goals for data-driven marketing, along with the metrics that matter most:
Increasing website traffic
If your goal is to increase website traffic, you will want to track metrics like unique visitors, page views, and bounce rate.
Improving conversion rates
If your goal is to improve conversion rates, you’ll want to track metrics like cart abandonment rate, time on site, and pages per visit.
Reducing customer churn
If your goal is to reduce customer churn, you’ll want to track metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer satisfaction score (CSC).
Increasing brand awareness
If your goal is to increase brand awareness, you will need to track measures like social media mentions, media impressions, and web referrals.
Of course, these are just a few examples – there are endless possibilities when it comes to setting goals for data-driven marketing. Once you’ve identified your goals, you can start looking for patterns in your data that will help you achieve them.
For example, let’s say you want to increase website traffic from Facebook. You could start by looking at your Facebook Insights data to see which of your posts are getting the most engagement.
Then, you could create more content like that and promote it on Facebook to drive traffic to your website.
Or, let us say you want to improve conversion rates on your website. You could use Google Analytics to see which pages people are spending the most time on and which pages have the highest bounce rate .
Then, you could make changes to those pages (such as adding more compelling calls-to-action) to try and improve conversion rates.
These are just a few examples, as there are endless possibilities when it comes to analyzing data and using it to inform your marketing decisions.
The important thing is to experiment and find what works best for you. Do not be afraid to ask for help if needed – there are plenty of resources (including articles, case studies, eBooks, webinars) out there that can teach you how to effectively use data-driven marketing .
Conclusion
Having data-driven marketing can help you achieve your business goals. It is important to remember that it’s not a silver bullet – there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and what works for one businesses might not work for another. The key is to experiment and find what works best for you.