Data Driven Marketing – How to optimise your audience

Data Driven Marketing – How to optimise your audience

How data driven marketing can improve your business

Marketing in the modern age is changing, back when traditional marketing was the only way to market, it was all about blasting information out to as many people as possible with little to no specific reasoning other than to raise awareness and hope someone or something bites. 

Data driven marketing allows businesses to take a look at what has or hasn’t been working in regards to their marketing strategies and campaigns, helping to make an informed decision on what areas to dedicate time and resources to. Using data can help make informed decisions on the best marketing strategy and what audience to market to rather than just guessing. You can find out information on who’s visiting your websites, where they are from and what they interact with the most. This helps market to the right people, the ones who are more likely to actually make a purchase and potentially become repeat customers.

Rather than following current patterns and trends, potentially being late to the game, data can be used to identify these patterns and trends as they are starting to be made, allowing you to capitalise on these.

In the digital age, marketing has become and will continue to become more specific and targeted, pinpointing customers wants and needs. Being able to understand your customer, using the data you have gathered on their online behaviours, their interest and their hobbies, helps personalise the experience of the customer by providing them with content that will actually spark interest and resonate with them.

Through the use of technology we can gather a large range of data on a customer, these being:

  • Purchases
  • Interests
  • Behaviours and habits
  • Consumer intent
  • Location
  • Customer needs

What are the different types of data you can collect?

Internal data is the data such as sales data, product information, sales trends, operational data, decisions made, marketing data and research data (surveys etc.)

Customer data/personal information is data that relates specifically to a person and could identify them. This could be names, location, behaviour etc.

Market research is the activity of collecting information on an audience’s views and opinions on that particular product or service and figuring out who the customers are/would be.

Good practice for the gathering and storage of data

Data can be collected through ways such as surveys, interviews, marketing analytics, social media and sales among many other methods. When it comes to gathering data, you first need to decide what methods to use, and then choose what data is more important or accurate to your needs.

Once this is all done the data gathered needs to be stored safely and securely. There is no one specific rule for all different types of data, however a general rule of thumb is to make sure data is stored securely and with correct file management taking place (access, handling security etc) and following the relevant GDPR.

Why is data important for marketing?

Data is very important in marketing for a host of reasons and helps provide a more customer-specific approach, rather than a one size fits all approach while still reaching a wider audience than the old ways of marketing. According to Harris Poll and AdWeek, 2021, “More than half (56%) of consumers say they want news and media platforms to personalise news and content they receive based on their interests, tastes and online activity”.

Using data, you are able to personalise marketing campaigns specific to the customers you’re trying to reach (while also figuring out who you want to target in the first place) and make a decision on what campaigns are better suited to which channel, for example video marketing is more suited to YouTube and Tiktok.  Using data to find out what a customer’s needs and wants are increases customer satisfaction, in turn increasing customer engagement and retention.

Research carried out through methods such as surveys will allow the opportunity to create ever-growing and better marketing techniques by learning from other companies’ mistakes and acting upon feedback given by your own customers rather than staying stagnant and continuing to market in a non-successful way.

Why should you be data driven?

So much potential audience is lost when not using all the optimal methods of marketing at your disposal. If you’ve got good quality data in hand with a good marketing strategy and campaign, you could reach a whole new audience and see an increase in engagement and leads. Do you want to create more informed marketing campaigns? Get in touch.