How to Develop a Data Driven Marketing Strategy

Using data is no longer a choice for marketers looking to put themselves ahead of the pack. Companies making good use of this data have a fine point as it relates to knowing their customer, effective campaign optimization, and strong ROI. But what exactly goes into building a data-driven marketing strategy? In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the whole process (yes, it is a process), so you can not only make better decisions, but also create killer campaigns.

What Is Data-Driven Marketing?

In summary, ‘data-driven marketing‘ refers to marketing strategies built around the insights gained from analyzing customer data. This includes gathering, analyzing, and applying data to better understand consumer behavior, preferences, and buying patterns. By using real-world data, rather than perceptions, to make decisions, marketing teams can develop campaigns that are barely targeted by their audience.

Importance of Data-Driven Marketing

There are several reasons why data-driven marketing is so vital:

Enhanced Personalization

Knowing who your audience is allows you to customize campaigns for them. Relevance gains increase when content is personalized, and the result of it all is an increase in engagement and conversions.

Better ROI

With a data-driven plan, your time is spent on what is proven to work. That’s cutting your losses and shifting your money into the high-performing campaigns.

Actionable Insights

Data uncovers the invisible, giving us insights into customer behavior. This knowledge lets you decide well and improve your strategies all the time.

Competitive Advantage

Businesses taking advantage of data have a head start in providing better customer experiences and are outperforming the competition, that is made up of people who trust their gut.

Essential Elements Of A Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

Data Collection and Analysis

Accurate, relevant data is at the core of any data-driven marketing strategy.

• Start with first-party data.
  Apply data collected from your channels — page views, email subscribers, and customer order history. Tools such as Google Analytics can give a wealth of information about How Users Read.

• Tap into third-party data.
  Third party sources Third-party sources can support your internal team with data, providing a broader industry perspective or market trends. Data marketplaces or data platforms such as Nielsen can be a dependable source for this.

• Organize your data
  Information is only useful if it’s organized and available. Leverage instruments such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems or data management platforms (DMPs) to streamline the collection and analysis of your data.

Setting Clear Goals and KPIs

• Outline your goals
  Do you want to build a brand, bring traffic to your website, or generate sales? This clarity will keep your campaigns on course and facilitate measurement.

• Define KPIs
  KPIs are your measures of success. For instance, when you track email open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and customer-acquisition costs, this is how to measure progress appropriately.

Identifying Target Audiences

• Build buyer personas
  Review demographic, behavioral, and psychographic information to develop broad buyer personas. Who are your customers? What are their pain points? What solutions are they looking for?

• Segment your audience
  Don’t treat your customer base as a single block; rather, segment your customers based on certain shared characteristics. You can thus create campaigns that are more personalized and relevant to them.

Personalization and Targeting of Shipments and Messages

Data enables unprecedented levels of personalization. According to a Salesforce survey, 66% of consumers now expect not just the products they buy but also the experiences those products enable to be personalized.

Provide custom experiences

Whether through recommending products for purchase or customizing email campaigns, guide the customer to purchase by showing them, using data that you “get” them. Marketing automation tools that develop dynamic personalized content can allow you to do just that.

Segment and shave your messaging

Talk to all your different groups in their language. For instance, repeat customers may tend to react more to loyalty offers while new prospects could use education content.

Testing and Optimization

Data-driven marketing doesn’t end once a campaign goes live. Regular testing and tuning keeps us ever vigilant.

A/B Testing

Experiment with other aspects of your campaigns (e.g., subject lines, CTAs, or website design) to discover what works best for your audience.

Evaluate performance metrics

Analyze campaign reports to identify wins and opportunities. Double down on what is working, and pivot from what isn’t.

What is Data Driven Marketing and Key Tools for It

Among a million moving parts, it helps to have the right tools. Here are a few must-haves:

• Track web site performance and user behavior with Google Analytics.

• HubSpot or Salesforce if you need to track customers and data.

• Mailchimp or Klaviyo for customized email.

• The product analytics with Mixpanel.

• SEMrush or Ahrefs for finding keywords and perfecting your content.

Examples of Effective Data Driven Marketing Campaigns

Amazon’s Recommender Blockly

Amazon uses a very generalized product recommendation system. Amazon knows all about personalization. Utilizing customer purchase history and browsing habits, it provides customized product recommendations that make millions of extra sales each year.

Spotify’s Wrapped Campaign

Spotify has listeners’ year-in-review streaming data to generate custom playlists. This extremely shareable campaign develops brand loyalty and also serves as an organic social media regard to action.

Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke”

Coca-Cola leveraged demographic information to personalize popular names on bottles, boosting sales by 2% in the US.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Marketers, even with the best intentions, do fall into traps.

• Data that are not accurate or complete
  Bad data results in bad decisions. It goes without saying: Clean your data and verify your data.

• Ignoring privacy regulations
  It’s up to you to guide your clients and make sure that they are not subject to lawsuits in relation to GDPR and other laws related to data protection.

• Over-personalization
  Over-targeting can feel creepy. Tune Balancing personalization and respect for your audience’s privacy.

The Future of Marketing Data to Inspire Your Use of Marketing Data

Data-driven marketing is not just a “nice to have.” It is the answer to build better customer relations, maximizing ROI and to get ahead in the increasingly competitive ecosystem.

The machine and AI learning will only get better at keeping improving the data analytics, which will provide us with even greater and more actionable insights. Companies which invest in a data-driven approach now are the ones that will be ahead of the game tomorrow.

If you want to boost the effectiveness of your marketing efforts through intelligent, data-backed decisions, start taking action based on these 12 steps. The most intelligent marketing is data-driven marketing.

For creative inspiration on applying your strategy throughout the year, check out our seasonal marketing ideas.
Seasonal Marketing Ideas to Transform Your Business Year-Round