4 Ways to Use Data-Driven Marketing to Improve Your ROI

As a market research firm in 2021, we’re data-focused. We have to be – It would be crazy to ignore the amount of information available. Verifiable data helps your business make strategic decisions based on real customer information and data-backed research.

Data-driven marketing means using in-depth analysis (informed by numbers and observations) to gain insights and discover trends. Being a data-driven marketer means using customer information to optimize your marketing efforts.

Improve ROI with Data-Driven Marketing 

We might be a little obsessed with data-driven marketing. But that’s because it’s so powerful for brands. Using real information about your customers, market, and product gives you the power to:

• Enhance the customer experience
• Optimize creative messaging 
• Target media buying 
• Personalize your marketing campaigns
• Figure out what’s working and what’s not
• Find meaningful ways to segment your market
• Get to know your customers before, during, and after a purchase
• Inform product development
• Reveal new platforms, markets, or cross-selling opportunities

How to Become a Data-Driven Marketer: Use Data to Improve Your Marketing

So you’re ready to make your marketing efforts more data-driven? Here are four key steps:

Set Goals and Objectives Based on Data, Not Guesses

Before you launch your next marketing campaign, ask yourself: are your campaign goals and objectives based on real data? Or on assumptions? Trust us, basing your KPI’s on guesses is the quickest way to waste great marketing potential. 

First, understand how your last campaign performed. Understand what objections or obstacles may have held you back. Where was there user friction? What did people love…and how can you prove it? Use data from previous campaigns to provide baseline measurements and identify opportunities for improvement. Then set goals to improve by X% in certain categories, for example.

Personalize Your Marketing Campaigns

As we’ve moved from billboards, cold calls, and mailings to emails and Facebook ads, marketing personalization has emerged as a major tactic. Now that you can gather data on individual prospects, you can personalize your marketing to reach an individual at the ideal place and time, with exactly the message they needed to hear.

Instead of casting a wide net to catch a small number of customers, data-driven marketers utilize tools to create accurate customer profiles and gather insights over time.

Take Action On The Data You Collect

Collecting information to learn about your audience is all well and good. But the real value is in actually using that data to make meaningful change. If you learn a customer’s favorite product, send them a small sample or a coupon code for that product. Do people hate your new product suite logos? Maybe you should test out some new ones. Looking at you, Google.

Remember, your brand is a living, breathing entity and it will change over time. You can do it blindly or you can do it with data.

Track, Analyze, Adjust, Repeat

So, how do you know if the change you made was a good idea? Great question. If you’re not Google and your feedback isn’t so public, you may need to ask for feedback. And not just one time. Ideally, marketing and market research is an open loop of feedback.

Opinions change over time and you can always learn more as more information is put out there. It’s kind of like how in a movie you get this one snapshot of a character, but in a Netflix series, you get to know them deeper over time. They become more of a ‘real person’. (Have we been in social distancing mode for too long?) 

When you use shorter surveys over time, you also avoid survey fatigue while building trust. Data-driven marketing is an ongoing process of iteration that looks something like this: 

• Identify potential trends
• Collect data & analyze
• Take action based on data
• Measure
• Analyze & adjust 
• Repeat

Track your performance over time using key performance indicators (KPI’s) to see what’s working, and what needs improvement. When you use your data continuously to learn how your customers behave, both online and off…you can create a better experience with your brand and win loyal customers. 

If you have any questions along your research journey, we’re happy to help. As market research consultants, we’re well-versed in techniques to get verifiable data to back your decision-making. Get the buy-in you need. And beat the competition. 

Read more: The Top 5 Questions Market Research Can Answer…