GLOBALWEBINDEX, July 6,
2017
We are producing more
data than ever before. Every credit card transaction we make, each GPS pinpoint
taken by your smartphone, and every click of the mouse we make online
contributes to an increasingly large and varied dataset. Analytics is the
software used to turn this data deluge into valuable insights – insights that
are being put to use by a broad spectrum of industries all over the world. Over
the last decade or so, marketing has been revolutionized by data analytics,
allowing brands to deliver more targeted messaging and measure their return on
investment (ROI).
Personalize your customer interactions
Businesses now have access to more information regarding their
customers than ever before. As well as surface-level data about their gender,
age, and geographical location, companies can now derive more detailed insights
regarding consumer behavior and preferences. It’s becoming increasingly clear
that not only are customers open to sharing their data with businesses in order
to receive personalized marketing, they are encouraging it. A recent report
by Salesforce, for example,
found that 52 percent of customers are extremely or somewhat likely to switch
brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize their communications
with them.
Today, brands are
personalizing their marketing efforts in a whole number of ways, gaining
fantastic ROI in the process. The likes of EasyJet, Marie Curie, and O2 have
all used data from previous customer interactions or geographical profiling to
deliver targeted messaging to their customers. When this kind of marketing is
done well, customers feel like they are valued as a unique human being, not
just another number on a spreadsheet.
Which channels are working and which aren’t?
Greater visibility is
one of the main benefits of data-driven marketing. Before the rise of digital
marketing and all its associated data, it was difficult for marketing teams to
determine which of their efforts, if any, contributed significantly towards a
purchase. Did that promotional campaign cause an uplift in sales, or was it
just a coincidence?
By using data,
marketers can now track customers along the journey from initial interest to
final purchase. With insights driven by website cookies and click-through rate
(CTR), marketers have a much clearer picture of what’s working and what isn’t,
allowing them to prioritize expenditure in the right channels.
Gaining cross-channel visibility in an
increasingly complex world
Interacting with
brands is no longer confined to simply walking into a shop and viewing a
product. Email communications, website visits and social media engagements all
combine to create a complex picture. Keeping track of all these interactions
can be a challenge – particularly when the average online user now has eight
social media accounts – and using data analytics is often the only way to turn
the broad spectrum of touchpoints into a cohesive customer profile. If brands
can achieve this, then customers receive a high-quality, uniform experience,
regardless of the channel they used to reach the business.
Full-funnel marketing in the digital age
The full-funnel
approach to marketing is a well-worn strategy, but it does need some tweaking
in the digital age. Consumers no longer make a linear journey from finding out
about your product to purchasing it. Instead, consumers often conduct most of
their research independently, using a variety of sources from corporate
websites to social networks. The latter, in particular, is a hugely important
part of the modern marketing funnel, with 43 percent of online users aged
between 16 and 24 using social media for product research. Marketers must
target and nurture their prospective customers across these new digital mediums
if they are to truly adopt a full-funnel approach to marketing.
Data scientists can be just as useful as the
data itself
Data alone is simply a
collection of numbers. It is only through analyzing this data and turning it
into insights that it becomes useful to companies. While software packages like
analytics programs are certainly helpful when it comes to analyzing data, it is
essential that brands do not underestimate the importance of highly skilled
data scientists. It is true that technology can help process vast quantities of
numbers in a fraction of a second, but real people are needed to develop
marketing strategies and objectives that make use of this data.
Understanding your customers as people
No matter how often
you directly interact with your customers there is only so much data you can
collect. To understand them as the multi-faceted individuals that they are,
many brands are choosing to augment their own first-party data with third-party
data. Of course, this creates its own problems – namely, which third-party
data, out of the masses available, is relevant and trustworthy?
The fact that 30 per cent of online users use a
Virtual Private Network (VPN) makes reliable data even harder
to come by, but it is not impossible. With cross-device ID tracking, brands can
access trustworthy third-party data that gives them a truer representation of
their customers.
The future is now
One of the most
exciting developments in marketing is the use of predictive analytics to
forecast consumer behavior before it takes place. By using audience profiling
data to predict what customers want, marketers can be much more proactive,
upselling products, creating long-term relationships with consumers and
determining market shifts before rival brands.
Unfortunately, many
marketing departments have been slow to adopt new technologies like predictive
analytics, despite the benefits that they offer. It is, however, surely only a
matter of time before this changes, with research findings indicating
that 89 percent of brands plan to invest in predictive analytics at some point
in the future. With market trends shifting so quickly, predicting new
developments ahead of time is an essential part of modern marketing.
