Data plays a big role in digital marketing and knowing how to analyze the data can be the secret ingredient to marketing success. Data helps us understand what is working and what is not. It allows us time to fine tune campaigns so that we can successfully achieve the goals intended. Thanks to the evolution of digital marketing, data is abundantly available and if used correctly, can help you drive you to your intended results more effectively. I spoke to several companies and Marketing professionals for their opinions on how data affects their efforts and here is what they had to say.
Hospitals like Memorial Healthcare System use data to collect information about their consumers in order to meet their needs.
“Analyzing data in marketing helps us better understand our consumers and detect trends in our industry. Data and analytics provides us with the opportunity to better predict and plan future growth and services, as well as, prepare us to strategically chart a course that will positively impact the health of our community,” said Aurelio Fernandez, President and CEO of Memorial Healthcare System.
Some companies hire agencies who are skilled with analyzing data and helping companies understand their consumer needs. Digital marketing agencies capture data and build strategic campaigns to help captivate and engage target audiences.
“Digital marketing has changed the way we use consumer insights. You can see data real time and understand how your audience is reacting to a message which allows you to quickly optimize in order to achieve your goals. You have the opportunity to make it right, if you didn’t get it right initially,” said Jacibe Areces, Client Partner at Nobox and experienced Brand Manager.
Data also helps experts like Eddie Urrutia, director of Trade Marketing for BBC Worldwide, analyze how to best leverage their content based on the audiences they serve.
“Data helps you understand your audience and allows you to segment them so that you can target a more effective group of consumers. It helps you focus on who needs the information for real, vs. those who don’t,” said Eddie Urrutia.
Marketing Analyst and Professor at Florida International University, Gustavo Mosquera, shares his thoughts about data.
“I’ve said it before – Marketing as we know it is changing just in front of our eyes and that evolution is being led by data. As Google says: ‘In God we trust, all others must bring data.’ Data allows decision-makers to track different metrics and key performance indicators that are critical to a particular business. In addition, whenever you’re able to measure the performance of a particular marketing effort and express it in numbers, your decisions, based on the data processed, and if done correctly, serve as a reliable information source to take decisions that will increase your success probabilities. That being said, if you can’t measure a marketing effort, experience and intuition that may have been sufficient in the past are not anymore. In the actual market place, led by digital transformation and characterized by the huge amount of data being not only collected but also processed in real time, your data processing capabilities represents a key competitive advantage,” Said Mosquera.
Students like Faheemah Kahn who is a Marketing Specialist in the Masters of Science in Marketing program at Florida International University, are actively learning about data and how to implement it in their marketing roles.
“Data analysis and digital marketing work together to present the best results from the data presented. Digital marketing makes it so much easier for us to get the collection of data that will help us, as marketers, grow our business effectively,” said Khan.
Data is available more than ever with social media insights, Google Adwords, and Google Analytics. Insights are available from practically every digital platform. Utilizing this information is imperative to see how consumers react and behave giving you a window to their interests and their needs. This becomes excruciatingly important when you are planning content.
As scary as reviews and ratings may be for a company, they help inform you of your consumer sentiment. If they are not happy, the reason causing this emotion can then become your opportunity for improvements. The conversation is happening with or without you, so you might as well get a handle on it and see how you can engage appropriately.
With data comes the opportunity for testing. A/B testing lets you see if a single variable could make or break your campaign or enhance your return on investment. By testing a single difference, you get insights to see if that one change alone can help move your campaign forward and help you see more positive results.
Finally, by using data to study your consumer behaviors, we get closer to predicting consumer behaviors which can save you and your company a lot of dollars. Predictive data can pinpoint what type of campaign will do best and at what time and with which target audience. This is pretty much the closest to being a fortune teller we can be. Digital marketing is evolving very quickly and with that, so is data, and it is here to stay.