Being able to stay on top of all information and having sufficient data about your customer is necessary for any marketer. However, collecting the right information about your customer might not be so easy to achieve. To make data-driven decisions and create value for your company, you will need to take some necessary actions within your digital management platform to ensure positive results and satisfy customers.
The Aberdeen Group’s Data-Driven Retail study found that data-driven businesses see a more significant annual increase in brand awareness by 2.7 times than companies that didn’t make data-driven decisions. Hence, it’s easy to underestimate data’s importance, especially if a business is thriving, collecting, and using its data.
However, I still find that many companies are struggling to use their data effectively for three main reasons:
They don’t have a central data point/management platform within their organization.
They haven’t prioritized it.
They lack having an effective MarTech (marketing technology) / digital strategy.
If you want to make data-driven decisions that increase the chances of your organization’s success, then knowing which data to use will create a more significant impact.
So, which data do you really need to collect within your digital technology solution? I’ll provide you with my top five (5) areas. Hopefully, my advice below can help you ensure your organization’s digital marketing strategies’ growth and success.
Customer Conversions
Tracking customer conversion is a powerful method to increase sales and revenue. Why is this? By tracking conversions, you will identify the customer’s actions before purchasing your organization’s product or service. For example, maybe you identify a pattern that indicates that most customers who end up buying from your organizations receive more than five emails. This information can be used to optimize potential customer’s journeys before they reach your website.
Click-Through Rate
Your advertisements and content’s click-through rate are an essential indicator of interest in your organization’s products and services. If your advertisements and emails are not getting many click-throughs, then that means you are doing something wrong.
In this case, your content could be too general and not targeted to a specific demographic. It could also be because you didn’t present an exciting and incentivizing offer, or you don’t completely understand your customers and what they want. This type of mistake can make your organization look irrelevant, as it will communicate to people that you do not understand your customer’s needs.
To resolve this issue, you should try A/B testing and compare different approaches to see which content performs the best and receives the highest number of click-throughs.
Customer Engagement with Content
One of the most significant types of data that you can measure is customer engagement. Customer engagement measures factors such as the number of likes, comments, and shares that a social media post may receive. This data is crucial because it’s a good indication of your organization’s number of potential customers.
You can measure engagement on social media posts, blog posts, emails, and any piece of content that allows for customer interaction. For example, to measure customer engagement within emails, the best type of measurement to look for CTOR, or click to open rate, which compares the number of unique clicks to unique opens. The number indicates how effective the email message, design, and content performed and whether it created enough interest in the recipient to act.
A good shortcut to gain these insights quickly is to enable AI technology capabilities within your digital platforms - so that you can be more effective and predict future customer behaviors. Many marketing technologies already come with AI capabilities as an added subscription, so it’s best to speak with your platform provider before you get started.
Bounce Rates
You want to make sure that your website’s Content Management System, or CMS, bounce rate is as low as possible. Bounce rate measures the number of people that visited your website and left without acting, such as clicking on another link or filling out a form.
Basically, if the bounce rate is high, you have targeted the wrong demographic or advertised the inaccurate content. Additionally, it would be best to keep in mind that bounce rates can be affected by technical issues such as your webpage loading too slowly or 404 errors. Knowing these factors can help you take immediate actions sooner than later.
Customer Retention Cost
Attracting many customers to your website is excellent, but you need to know if your marketing efforts are successful. You can do this by measuring the customer retention cost, or CRC. This data calculates your marketing efforts’ total cost to bring in customers and compares it to your organization’s total number. It could also help you find out how much you are spending to retain your customers. This type of measurement is powerful to prove to your management team that your marketing efforts are worth the investment.
Conclusion
If you are struggling to find and use data that creates an impact, I hope the above areas make this process a lot easier. Data-driven decisions are indeed essential in creating a future-proof marketing strategy and a successful business overall. Thus, understanding the right kind of data can help your organization grow faster.
Author
Jheri Malm
Senior Marketing Consultant
Recoordinate
Connect with me: Linked In
References
Data-Driven Retail: The Path to Maximize the Shopper Experience
Marketing Data: What Matters And What Doesn't