Data-driven marketing isn’t just some buzzword. It’s an approach to marketing that uses analytics and interpretation to improve your growth via marketing.
And it’s not just for big businesses—small businesses and startups can also use data-driven marketing to improve their results.
What Is Data-Driven Marketing?
Data-driven marketing is a type of marketing that incorporates data and data analytics into all aspects of marketing—from strategizing and planning to execution and measurement.
The goal of data-driven marketing is to improve business outcomes by executing on analytics insights. This can mean anything from increasing leads and conversions to reducing customer churn or improving retention.
Roughly 64% of executives agree that data-driven marketing is a key factor in their success. So, you have no choice but to adopt data-driven marketing techniques if you want to compete! But don’t worry—we’ll be teaching you how to execute a data-driven marketing strategy in the sections below.
What Kinds of Data Should You Collect?
The specific kinds of data you collect will depend on your business goals, but there are some general types of data that are useful for most businesses. Do keep in mind that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a startup or an enterprise business. You can take advantage of various tools to collect and analyze the following data.
- Sales and marketing data: This type of data includes information on your sales process, customer acquisition costs, conversion rates, marketing channels, and more.
- Target market data: Do a deep dive into your target audience or market to create a buyer persona—or even multiple if it makes sense for your business. Learn about the keywords they search for, the reason they seek out your business, and what they want to hear.
- Competitor data: Understand what your competitors are doing—and more importantly, how well it’s working for them. Monitor their strategies, ad campaigns, social media, website design, and more.
- Website Data: Use Google Analytics or another similar platform to track how users interact with your website. This will give you valuable insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
How to Execute a Data-Driven Content Marketing Strategy
Executing a data-driven content marketing strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. Here, we’ve stripped the process down to four easy-to-follow steps:
- Start with a goal in mind.
- Collect data from a variety of sources.
- Analyze the data to identify patterns.
- Use the data to improve your marketing.
Let’s go into more detail on each of these steps.
1. Start with a goal in mind.
Your data-driven marketing strategy needs focus. That’s why the first step is to choose a specific goal or objectives for your strategy.
The goal you set should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (i.e., SMART). For example, a SMART goal for a data-driven content marketing strategy could be to increase web traffic by 10% over the next three months.
Some other common marketing goals and objectives include:
- Increasing sales or revenue
- Generating more leads
- Improving customer satisfaction or loyalty
- Reducing customer churn
- Increasing web engagement
2. Collect data from a variety of sources.
Now that you have a goal in mind, it’s time to start collecting data. There are a number of different sources you can use, including:
- Your website: Google Analytics is a great place to start. Look at things like page views, unique visitors, time on site, bounce rate, and more.
- Social media: Most platforms provide a basic level of analytics that you get insights from. Otherwise, there are many analytics tools such as Hootstuite and Sprout Social at your disposal.
- Business growth data: This consists of any data related to business growth, including monthly recurring revenue, customer acquisition cost, average revenue per user, and so on. You can use tools like Stripe and ProfitWell to get actionable insights from this type of data
- Your CRM system: This data will tell you about your customers, their behaviors, and their interactions with your business.
- Surveys and polls: You can use surveys or polls to collect data directly from your target audience.
- Interviews: Interviews are another great way to collect qualitative data about your target audience.
- Feedback: Collect feedback from customers, employees, partners, and others to get insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
3. Analyze the data to identify patterns.
Once you have all of your data, it’s time to start analyzing it. Look for patterns and trends in the data that can help you better understand your target audience or market.
Using the example of the content marketing strategy from earlier, you could analyze which pieces of content got the most engagement and use that to inform your audience persona going forward.
4. Use the data to improve your marketing
Now that you have a good understanding of your target audience and what they want, you can use that information to improve your content marketing strategy.
Some specific ways you can do this include:
- Creating more targeted messaging: Produce marketing content that is relevant to your target audience and answers their questions or addresses their pain points.
- Optimizing your website: Use the data you’ve collected to improve your website design, navigation, and overall user experience.
- Promoting your content: Use the data on things like social media platforms, search engine keywords, and referral sites to better promote your content.
- Measuring results: Use analytics tools to measure the results of your data-driven marketing strategy and make adjustments as needed.
Elevate Your Marketing Strategy
Data-driven marketing is a complex process. So, don’t worry if you don’t know how to apply right off the bat—that’s what mentors are for!
If you could use a bit of guidance from one of GrowthMentor’s expert mentors, click here to sign up and schedule an introductory call. We’ll help you take your marketing strategy to the next level.
