The world of data and analytics can be challenging to decipher for marketers. Nowadays, we are able to collect a variety of insights from our leads and current customers, including website activity, demographics, personal and contact information. With the mass amount of information easily disposable to us, it may be hard to know where to start analyzing and using every stat that pops up on our screen.
Thankfully for us who are not data scientists, there are tools, such as Act-On’s Engagement Insights, that make all this information easy to track and understand. A good place to start leveraging these metrics is using them to measure and show the success of your marketing efforts. Having numbers to support your strategy and work enables you to show the impact marketing has on your organization’s bottom line, and enables you to strengthen your case next time you need a larger budget to expand your program.
However, data can do so much more than help you demonstrate your marketing ROI. There is just as much potential to use it at the beginning stages of your marketing planning process. Looking at what has worked in the past, as well as using new information to further develop your customer persona, can provide you guidance on how to refine your marketing efforts for improved engagement and increased conversions. But don’t just take our word for it. CMOs across various organizations agree, with 58% of them noting that data is having a huge impact on their overall marketing efforts.
Therefore, if you truly want to take your marketing to the next level, I challenge you to use the customer data and insights you collect to inform your marketing efforts. Here are a few ways you can use these metrics to shape your overall marketing strategy and improve the customer experience every step of the way.
Create an Enjoyable Website Experience
Your website is a good place to start improving the customer experience, and your analytics can enable you to learn and understand what type of roadblocks pain your audience when it comes to navigating through. Stats such as page visits and conversion rates are not just a way to measure your success in terms of impact, they can also be used to support any recommendations for future changes and updates.
For example, are there any pages that don’t see much traffic or cause your leads to abandon your site? Are there certain CTAs that motivate customer engagement and others that don’t? Use these insights to better optimize your website to fit the type of customer journey your prospects and leads are anticipating when they visit.
You can also look at your analytics to gain a better understanding of the types of keywords are driving customers to your website. Even if it looks great, you will want to make sure it is optimized to show up in search engine results. And you’ll also want to ensure you are speaking the same language as your prospects and leads throughout so your message resonates with them and inspires them to convert into customers.
Produce More Engaging Outbound Marketing Content
To drive up the engagement of your outbound efforts, use A/B testing to compare how different subject lines, CTAs and content are performing with your audience. Set up a time a few weeks after your initial campaign launch to revisit it, and look at the insights you’ve collected to determine any necessary changes. For example, if a certain subject line isn’t inspiring any clicks among your leads, then think of ditching it and replacing it with something more exciting. If you notice video content is resulting in more visits to your website, whereas text links are not, try using more of that in future emails.
Let Data Inspire Your Messaging
Looking at data, such as keywords searched, can also help you better craft your brand story. Take time to look at your results and better understand what pains your customers, and why they need your product. Use this information to strengthen your argument about why your product or story is just the solution they’ve been looking for.
But, don’t just let it inform how you tell your story. You can also get creative and use some of this data to show prospects and leads how current customers are using your product or service. Take this fun billboard and ad campaign from Spotify for example. The company used anonymous user data to tell an engaging story about how people are using their music platform. They pulled everything from names of playlists, number of times people streamed a particular song or playlist, and other fun stats. This not only demonstrated the reach of the platform, it told a memorable story that inspired non-customers to learn more.
Determine What Content Appeals To Your Customers
When it comes to creating a content strategy that gets results, looking at historical data of what has worked and what hasn’t is always a great place to start. This way, instead of simply assuming what type of content might appeal to your customers, you can use data to determine what information your customers need at every stage of the sales funnel. In fact, 50% of content marketers agree that having a better understanding of what works has improved their content marketing efforts.
The great thing is there are plenty of ways you can use data to guide your marketing strategy. You can begin by taking note of what topics are driving the most engagement, what CTAs are driving conversions, and what types of searches are leading prospective customers to access your content. Use these insights to guide your strategy moving forward so you are creating content that provokes your customers to keep learning more.
Improve Personalization
Nowadays, a huge part of creating an effective customer experience is making it feel personal and unique to each of your customers. Your leads and prospects need to feel like you are paying attention to their needs and interests every step of the way. This is one area where data comes in really handy because it allows you to learn more about who your customer is, what they prefer, and what is driving them to seek your product or service.
Having marketing analytics for your customer data and insights allows you to improve your marketing efforts by predicting what tools and information will come in handy to them and when. And while you may think you need expensive resources or your own sophisticated algorithm to pull this off, marketing automation platforms are making it more accessible for any company to use data to adapt to their customer’s journey. Using predictive technology along with automation will enable you to send customers the information they need when they’re ready to take the next step in the customer journey, instead of at some arbitrary time.