Digital data has become an integral part of both online and offline marketing. Marketing data analysis is no longer an up and coming practice and is now considered the industry standard. Customer data is being collected in mass, but not every business knows what to do with data. When analyzed and parsed properly, marketing data can provide invaluable insights and opportunities that can improve your business. Companies can track almost everything customers do online; every click informs a customer profile that businesses can use to better market their products or services. Data analysis can greatly impact and inform the decisions a business makes making it an important tool for conducting business in the increasingly digital modern world.
Customer Data
Customer data is the most common type of data businesses collect. Customer data can include customer names, phone numbers, addresses, purchase history, gender, age, and other demographic information. Customers voluntarily post most of their information across the Internet, social media platforms are the largest customer data treasure troves, making it easy for businesses to scoop up and store the information in a database. If a customer purchases an item or makes an account with a specific business, all of the customer, account, and transaction data is also collected. Most businesses have a large collection of customer data, but how is that data used?
Demographic Data-Based Personalization
If you have ever received a marketing email from a business, you may have seen personalization in action. Companies will commonly slot customer’s names into text fields so it appears as if the email was personally sent to that customer. Research by Experian found that personalized marketing emails had a 29% higher open rate and 41% higher click-through rates proving that personalization is effective. Some customers have stated that they are less likely to or refuse to do business with companies that don’t take the time to personalize their marketing materials. Using your customer database to fill in text fields is the easiest version of personalization, but there are other ways you can tailor your marketing content.
Customer data will frequently tell you where a customer or a group of customers live making it easy to alter your copy to reflect different climates. Sending an ad for winter clothes to a customer who lives in a cold climate will be more effective than sending the same customer an ad for beach attire. Time zones are another geographic factor to consider; sending a blast email at the same time across multiple time zones is ineffective. When one customer is off work and available to check their email, a different customer might be in the middle of their workday. By staggering your email blasts by time zone you can ensure your email arrives at the ideal time for every customer.
Behavioral Data-Based Personalization
You can also personalize the ads you send a customer based on their transaction and browsing history. If a customer has recently abandoned a shopping cart, send them an email reminding them of what specific items are still in their cart and highlighting special promotions that might affect their transaction total.
Customer transaction history can also tell you what items a customer would likely purchase next. If a customer bought a high-end sit/stand desk they may be more inclined to buy a treadmill desk in the future. Matching the price and category of items a customer has already bought to similar items is key to making your suggested items appropriate and effective. You also must factor in the number of items a customer has purchased. Offering a customer who has only bought single-user licenses of software will likely never buy enterprise-level software.
What Worked and What Didn’t
Data analysis can provide a clear understanding of what efforts benefited the company and which initiatives did not perform. Without data to objectively determine if a new process worked, success or failure could be blamed on any random element. Acting on an assumption without the data to back it up is reckless and could lead to disastrous consequences.
By tracking the performance of various ads sent out through social media, email, and mailers your business can determine what advertising method is the most effective. Were more emails opened than before because of the new ad or was it a coincidence? Did the social media campaign directly result in more sales? Did customers use the mailer promotion code?
Data analysis combined with customer feedback gives marketers a clear picture of what is working and what should be changed. Understanding what worked and what didn’t gives businesses the confidence to scrap ineffective methods and focus on already proven tactics. This saves businesses time and money by not wasting resources on ads that won’t yield the desired results.
Data analysis is especially important when using CRM systems such as SalesForce. When you export salesforce data you can find yourself leveraging the data in many ways.
Changing Future
Data analysis is an important tool for markets, but technology is slowly altering how marketers collect data. Over 30% of online users are now using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which hides their identity and data. VPNs can make reliable data harder to collect, but new technological solutions are looking to solve the problem. Cross-device https://masterra.com/ ID tracking lets marketers track a user across multiple devices and combine data from different devices to create a well-rounded user profile.
Marketing data analysis is standard practice for modern businesses. Data can provide critical insights and highlight opportunities. Use data to personalize ads for your customers and to determine what marketing efforts were successful.