Leveraging Data Analytics to Transform your Marketing Strategy

Big data is not a fad. Spending on data analytics continues to rise as business and marketing leaders work to increase value to consumers and measure results of their advertising efforts. According to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), becoming data-centric continues to be a priority for U.S. marketers and other users of data. Data volumes are exploding, analytics capabilities are increasing, but the crucial questions remain: what data points should I analyze and how do I turn the data results into an actionable strategy for marketing success?

What do my best customer’s look like?

One of the first places I start is the customer database; appending demographics, psychographics and lifestyle data to better understand the group. I compare profitable customers to unprofitable customers, churners to non-churners, loyalty program customers to non-loyalty, segment movers and customers who are high value to those that are not. Finding that nugget of truth in the data helps you move forward with a successful strategy. That strategy impacts targeting, messaging and channel selection.

How can I get more ROI from my marketing spend?

Measure everything and determine benchmarks. Compare campaigns that had better than expected results to ones that underperformed, responders to non-responders, promotional periods, offers and channels. Another important factor for many of the industries that I market for is seasonality. When making comparisons and determining benchmarks it is important to understand peak seasonality where response and conversion may be higher than other time periods. Weather and economic indicators are other factors that can impact your results.

How can I improve customer acquisition?

Having established what your best customers look like above, compare them to the marketplace data to determine where your customer’s index above the market. My best customer is 2x as likely to live in a home valued over $500,000 than the market 3xs as likely to have an income over $75,000 etc. walk through the basic demographics. Also look at lifestyle characteristics. There are several data models that will give you a starting place for channel preference, how people spend their leisure time, what they are passionate about etc. Put an initial plan in place then test, test, test. Measure the results of your creative, messaging, offers and channels. It is not surprising to find that each community varies in the typically successful channel mix, even within the same industry or product line. Improving acquisition involves constantly measuring and optimizing your marketing message, channel mix and offers.