Data Driven Marketing In this Digital Era

Data-Driven Marketing In this Digital Era

I was never a data-driven guy!

When I started as a Marketing associate at my first job, I took some of the data insights for granted. In fact, I got this feedback during one of my review cycles that I have to start analysing the data to excel as a marketer.

And this hit me hard!

Then I slowly started analysing every insight that I could possibly pull and realised, things when dug deeper, give new perspectives, helps you with different approaches to solve a problem, and productive ways to complete a task.

Tip: My advice to every marketer who’s starting fresh, please be data-driven!!!. You don’t need to be a pro at math, but help yourself with some basics of analysing the data and slowly scale that up.

Into the article now:

Recently, a friend of mine, who’s doing her Masters in Marketing asked me if I could help her on a thesis, which is is about data-driven marketing in the digital era.

Without any hesitation, I said yes.

I know I’m no expert, but I wanted to help her out with what I know, and this would be a great learning for me as well.

So, there was 4 batches in total with 4 questions in each batch. In this article, I’ve put out all those batches along with my perspectives drafted in the answer part. I hope you’ll find this article helpful.

Batch 1: Businesses & data-driven strategies

1. Why do you think businesses need to adopt this strategy now?

From my perspective, every company should adopt a data-driven strategy at an early stage. I agree, when you’re starting new, you might not have all the required data to make decisions. It’s completely okay. Don’t wait for 100% data to plan things around because you will never have it— Do start at least when you have 70% of what is required.

2. How far unique/exceptional are the benefits from using data-driven approaches?

The data-driven approach precisely helps you with three things:

• To make strategic decisions.
• To plan your long-term goals
• To improve constantly with what you do.

3. Is it absolutely necessary for companies to follow this approach? Why?

Definitely yes. If you wish your company to build a solid and successful marketing team, it’s certainly important to go with the data-driven approach.

4. How far does it actually offer support specifically to event-based marketing?

For event-based marketing, following a data-driven approach is even more crucial. If things go wrong at any particular event/touchpoint/trigger, the data-driven strategy enables you to analyse what went wrong and solve the issues right there.

Batch 2: Data-driven strategies & their significance in Marketing

1. Compare your view of other methods to event-based marketing

In my view, as someone who’s learning event-based marketing, I feel the data-driven approach has been super critical to me because,

• It enables me to correct my mistakes then and there and focus on improving.
• It helps the company and me in making critical decisions. When you’re working on your mistakes on the spot, you don’t have to really worry about the long-term results. It will surely be in your favour.

2. Your failure with other methods if any or What you consider are the pros of data-driven marketing?

• Every strategy has a fair amount of successes and failures. Even when you follow the data-driven approach, you can’t say that you will be successful. From my perspective, it’s a never-ending journey, and there’s undoubtedly no saturation point of success. Every day is an opportunity for in-depth analysis and becoming better. One thing to remember is that mere data won’t really help. It’s all about digging deep and acting on it that puts you ahead in a successful journey.
• Pros — Correcting mistakes asap and winning in the long term.

3. Why data-driven approach is crucial for marketers?

Let’s say you run a marketing or email campaign. As a marketer, you ought to know the performance metrics of every campaign and analyse how you’re evolving on the go. Let alone evolving, you should know if the campaigns/emails are actually working for your business. Without analysing the straightforward form of data, there’s no point running those massive campaigns, right?

Note: Being data-driven is the key if you’re super concerned about how much your work is creating an impact.

4. How essential is this approach to your company?

Since we have a global SaaS product, it’s a big win-win for us in a plethora of ways. Some of them would be to acquire new customers, increase the lifetime value of the existing customers, increase customer adoption, increase the feature adoption, and turn detractors into promoters.

Batch 3: How has expertise in data analytics tools improved marketing competences?

1. What tools you usually use for data analytics?

• Google Analytics — To measure all your marketing campaigns in one place.
• Excel /Google Sheets— To carefully put things in place and compare.

I also know a lot of companies use Power BI, Tableau to enhance their data-driven strategy.

2. How is experience in the field vital here?

Once, I made a mistake with the product we rely on to pull the meaningful insights. It stopped our Sales operations for a couple of days. Thanks to all the good people I had around me. We analysed the problem and collectively solved the issue. Hadn’t I had those people at that time, I have no clue what would have happened. That also made me realise experience plays a significant role, and that too for freshers, having experienced folks around you is crucial as they are your life-savers.

3. Would you like to add more on data analytics experts to your company on the marketing front?

Currently, we are in a good space with enormous scope to learn and grow. But as the company grows and gets bigger, it’s important to have enough people to focus on things that matter. So please keep checking out our careers page.

4. On what front do you think majority of data analytics tools require improvement?

I feel the analytics tools should help companies achieve their long term goals. It should solve the users’ purpose of using a product. Based on these two aspects, one can build a product.

Batch 4: Hurdles/limitations for not adopting the data-driven strategy

1. The biggest problem or obstacle you have faced in using data-driven approach to marketing?

There is always a chunk of data that can be used for nothing. Not everything makes sense in the first look. But it would be best to dig deep, analyse the source (from where the data comes from), and map things correctly. I’m pretty sure you’ll arrive at the results if items are interpreted rightly.

Note: Be sure not to treat any data as trash.

2. What factors make it hard to adopt this method (maybe cost, lack of experienced people, restrictions in data availability, legal issues etc.)

• Experience comes first
• Legal issues comes second
• And last is the lack of product knowledge/exposure.

3. What do you think is the biggest problem or concern for companies which rely completely on data-driven marketing approaches (in the present/future for instance the Ban on using third party data etc.)?

You don’t have to rely on any third party data for sure. Your own company will have every insight that is required. Just try to get the right tools & people in place. You will be able to do it, effortlessly.

4. What are your suggestions or expectations to tackle said hurdles or limitations in the field?

Here goes mine:

• Go with the flow and enjoy the show.
• Don’t worry if things go wrong. Try learning and improving from it.
• Don’t term anything as junk. Instead, try to make maximum use of it.
• It’s a long journey. Don’t expect early success. Allow it some time. You’ll see guaranteed results.

Conclusion

To conclude, Data is the fuel for any business. In the coming future, we can see a lot of companies focus effectively on improvising the processes to analyse the data. I’ve written an article on why visualising Data is important for businesses. You can read through it when you find the time.

Let me wrap things for now.

I hope you had something to take home from this article. Please feel free to get in touch with me. Here’s my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaushik-vikram-balaji/

Let me know if this article has helped you learn something new.

See you in the next one.