The experience, the intuition, and the emotion are factors that are present in a decisive process; however, there is an element that has great influence on the manager when choosing the best path for the company: the data-driven marketing.
It consists of cross-checking information from various sources (market research, social networking, the press, management reports, corporative websites, among others) so that decisions can be made in a more rational way.
Besides data cross-checking, this marketing is responsible to collect, store and analyze a great quantity of information. In this post, we will detail how it works in order to be used by a company in the best way possible. Check it out!
Get to know how to use data-driven marketing
The first step to successfully adopt this marketing modality is to have an objective that is clearly set. That is because, without a specific objective for the use of an infinite amount of information, it is useless to work with it.
Only storing data will not grant a company a more expressive performance. For that reason, it is fundamental to adopt procedures to use data in a correct and intelligent way. Keep track of that!
Extraction
The first initiative to adopt data marketing is the extraction of information. It involves three types of contents. The structured ones are those which have a direct connection with the organization. The semi-structured ones are those which involve the digital marketing activities (SEO, Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, etc.). As for the non-structured ones, they englobe other means of communication that do not have a direct connection with the company, such as news portals, forums and users’ profiles at social networking websites.
Due to the fact that information appears on various platforms and sources, this is one of the most complex stages of this marketing.
Organization
After having gathered a great deal of data, it is important to verify which of the information is pertinent to your business and organize it. In this case, the recommendation is to separate the information into groups, so that one can understand how they relate to each other.
This measure is a way of classifying what this information can generate, in terms of knowledge, to the company. That is why you shouldn’t discard any pieces of data in a precipitated way since they can be useful for other corporation units.
It is fundamental to carefully analyze how a piece of information may contribute for the company to have a better performance, before eliminating it.
Comprehension
At this stage, the process of data comprehension with the cross-checking activity has its start. So, it is necessary to define how the information will be understood, that is, to establish whether it will be available visually or textually.
For that stage to be carried out successfully, it is indicated to count on professionals of User Experience who know how to make use of Data Visualization. They can contribute to facilitating the visualization of data, what greatly facilitates the reading and comprehension.
As data becomes clean and grouped, it will be easier to understand and use it in order to reach the established goals.
Analysis
Along with data-driven marketing, a special attention should be given to this moment. One of the reasons for that is the need to verify the information obtained through the cross-checking and the follow up of KPI’s (key performance indicators).
At this stage, it is important to keep track of the results of the marketing and sales, to evaluate how business is reaching the objectives, either if it falls within the target or not.
Without a meticulous analysis of data, the efforts for extraction, organization, and comprehension will be useless for the company to look for alternatives in order to obtain a notable performance.
Decision making
The decisive process is a moment of great importance for every company. After all, it will be responsible for the corporate actions during a period of time – a month, a trimester, a semester, a year, etc.
It is impossible for an organization to go further if the managers don’t have the capacity to decide what is going to be done. For this reason, all the previous stages of data-driven marketing must be executed in a fully attentive way.
A negligence at the analysis stage, for instance, may signify the adoption of a mistaken strategy to increase the sales. Nowadays, making decisions that are only based on instincts and on experience is extremely risky.
These days, a company can’t reject the chance to follow, in real time, all the sales actions; since it enables the correction of errors which involve some activities, such as price policy, delivery of products and evaluation of the target audience.
All the stages of data-driven marketing must be well executed so that the decisions are correct and adequate for your business.
Understanding the role of Big Data
It is surely not an easy task to work with a wealth of information. On the other hand, it is possible to execute this task very efficiently. In this scenery, the use of Big Data has become highly relevant, since this resource enables the analysis of a great volume of data in an assertive way, what beneficiates decision making.
There are various tools of Big Data that cross-check data from different sources. The objective is to show concrete data to the clients so that decisions can be made with more clarity and accuracy. Besides, this resource can be perfectly applicable to data-driven marketing.
One example of this is Spotify, which shows the users recommendations of music that is related to the preferences of the audience. How is this possible? Nowadays, there are data-gathering systems that identify the users’ preferences.
A determined software can cross-check the profile of a young person who likes Rock (age, place where he lives and other information), with that of other people who have a similar musical taste. In this way, Spotify offers music from artists or groups that would arouse the interest of the users.
Data-driven marketing is an ever-growing trend in the corporative world, and the use of information is a great differential for companies to understand the behavior of the target audience.
Moreover, by counting on data in real time, market trends can be foreseen. This measure may avoid, for instance, the launching of a service that is not going to meet the needs of the clients.
No organization can lose time with products that will not reach the expected results. Being well-informed is also a way of thinking about alternatives to innovate and conquer a prestigious position in the market.
If you want to perfect data-driven marketing at your company, don’t lose time and read this post about how to manage the metrics well. Knowledge is indispensable for success.
