No excuses.
Twenty years ago, marketers did not have many options to gather customer data and it was both costly and time consuming. Now, marketers have data at their fingertips and there isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t be accessing that data to assist them in their advertising and marketing decisions.
Data has become the new driving force for businesses and their marketing decisions. Advertisers now have consumer data through online surveys, purchasing data, SEO and SEM data, social information, mobile usage, CRM products and, at a bare minimum, website analytics. This data should be leveraged to understand how clients, customers, or prospects are accessing your information or making purchasing decisions.
Below we have provided some insight on how marketers can use their data to better understand their prospect, client, or customer.
Website Traffic Data
If your aren’t currently looking at your website analytics you need to start…immediately. Important information you need to understand and track includes:
– Referral Sources: It is important to know how prospects or customers are accessing your website. Do you know how the majority of visitors access your website? Is it direct or through referral sources?
– Device Usage: From a user experience, it is important to understand if they are accessing your website through a mobile device or a desktop.
– Customer Engagement and Usage: How are your customers or prospects engaging with your website? What pages do they go to? How long do they stay and why are they leaving?
– Conversions: Establish goals and conversions and begin to track conversion rates in order to increase customer interaction.
If your company is currently utilizing a CRM system, this information will help by providing insight about individuals in your sales funnel. If not, you need to get a CRM system in place.
Online Surveys or Customer Experience Surveys
Historically, companies had to invest in very costly and time consuming customer feedback surveys that were typically utilized by phone or mail services. Now, customers can create simple ongoing surveys that can be distributed very easily via online platforms and can be used to gauge immediate customer feedback. This information should be utilized in making operational or communication recommendations.
Social Information
Most companies or organizations have a presence on social media. Each platform provides very sophisticated engagement data that should be analyzed and used to make better decisions regarding client engagement and feedback.
External Research and Trends
Data is important for everyone! No matter your industry, the size of your company, or the product or service you’re selling, your data should be the driving force for your company’s marketing decisions. External research or industry trends were historically very expensive to obtain because advertisers would have to subscribe to trade publications, enlist a research firm, or subscribe to a research study to get this information. But now, we can use the Internet to obtain research or industry trend information for basically free or a minimal charge, so there is no excuse not to use it.
