Mining your data is one of the best ways to strengthen the impact and ROI of marketing campaigns. There is big business for big data, and while most of the world’s leading organisations invest millions of dollars, there’s a lot to be learned for NFP and B2Bs. In our previous post we explored the different types of marketing data. Now we’ll explore why it’s so important for nonprofits and B2Bs to do data better.
Segmentation and Personalisation
Marketers that exceeded their revenue goals are using personalisation techniques 83% of the time. In addition, businesses that employ data-driven personalisation were shown to deliver five to eight times the ROI on marketing spend (Invesp).
It’s clear that data-driven personalisation can give campaigns the laser focus they need for success. Who are the different audiences you target? And what are their key pain points? Is there a group you might be missing out on as your business grows? These are the core questions that sit at the heart of any marketing campaign. Data obtained from CRM systems, directly (like a survey or telemarketing campaign) and through other third party means (such as social media) is valuable in helping to target each audience.
“You can segment your marketing using the data you collect so that you can personalise your marketing efforts more, such as by directly targeting startup companies with one email while directly targeting mid-sized companies with another. This way you can personalise your message to better meet their specific needs, whether it’s affordability, efficiency, flexibility, reliability or security, to name a few examples.”
Strategy
As you drill deeper into the data (using all of the means you have available) - you start to uncover the best times to post on social media or to target certain audiences or donors. This allows you to carefully map what messages are most effective on the customer/donor journey.
For example, web analytics (via Google Analytics and other) can tell you what page returning visitors to your website are most likely to visit. Using these insights can help you tailor the call to action and messaging on that page to help them convert.
Is your B2B client even on social media? Maybe. Or perhaps an advertisement in an industry journal or publication would be more effective. Gather all the information you can and work out where they play.
See also: Customer journeys: discover what 81% of B2Bs are doing and our complementary e-book: Decoding the customer journey
Innovation
Marketing data can tell you a lot about your customers. These insights into customer or donor behaviour give you the power to think ahead and innovate. What products might your customers want to see? What kind of brand experience are they seeking? One way to do this of course to make sure you’re at the very least keeping up with competitors, but real data allows your team to innovate.
In an article by DMN, a panel discussing the impact of data driven marketing, found that a clear benefit for customers included innovation. A representative from JP Morgan Chase said: “We use all of those digital interactions over time to create innovation and connect with customers in new ways. For example, mobile usage was so high on our online platforms that we created better, more secure apps.”
Measurability and Accountability
Basing more decisions on data analysis was identified as the most important data driven marketing objective (Invesp). Access to data allows informed marketers to track engagement and ultimately determine the overall value of a campaign. Key measures include: A/B testing, cart abandonment analysis, web page conversions, predictive social commerce and competitor benchmarking amongst many others.
ROI
Strategic marketers that are clever about using marketing data are more successful. Targeting your customers in an informed and empathetic way means that your message is more likely to be received and acted upon. It also means that you are less likely to waste campaign funds by (for example) spending on a channel that your client base isn’t even using. More money in the bank means savings and/or the ability to expand on campaigns and channels that are likely to wield great success.
It’s worth mentioning that blind faith in numbers alone often doesn’t give the most realistic and holistic story as this article indicates.
“Industry experts have noted that simply looking at raw data and believing that the numbers tell the whole story is likely a fallacy. The best use of analytics often combines the data with ascribing some kind of narrative, developed through a combination of intuition and the simple eye test. If your initial gut instincts are supported by the numbers, those are the types of findings that you should be relying most staunchly upon.”
Stay tuned for more marketing data for B2B and NFP insights.