Lucy Hardaker
According to Workbooks, 90% of the world’s data has been created in the past two years alone….which means there’s A LOT of data available to marketers right now. Your team need to start drawing valuable data insight if you want to truly understand your prospects’ buying behaviour, increase lead generation and ultimately improve your marketing ROI.
In order to do that, you need to lay the foundations that ensure data-driven processes become the heart of your marketing team’s activity. If you can empower your team to wrestle big data into concise analysis, well, let’s just say you’ll be well on your way to lead generation success.
Know what data you need and why
Now this might seem a bit of a ‘well…duh’ point, but you’d be surprised how many marketers are concerned with making sense of all that data – 70% of respondents to a recent eMarketer survey said just that.
Before you set your team loose on your databases, you need to understand what insight you want to gain and how this will help you hit your goals as a marketing team. For example, are you looking to explore the possibilities and improve decision-making with analytics? Or gain an enhanced 360-degree view of your customer base?
By identifying what insight you want to gain, you can start collecting your data sources together into a closed loop. This will help you gain as much insight as possible and keep everything moving towards your marketing goals.
Put the right tools in place
Time is of the essence for many a B2B Marketer and scrambling round looking for scattered data across your separate marketing channels is NOT where you want your team spending their time…
With over 80% of top performing companies now adopting marketing automation systems, marketers are using the likes of systems such as Hubspot to gather data and build processes that are more integrated – but big data isn’t just for big businesses. Get rid of that data headache and set your team up for success by making sure you have the right tools in place to collect and analyse your data.
If you’re a start-up business just starting out, tools that organise, analyse and automate your data processes are accessible, and not as scary as you might think! Take a look at these top 6 big data solutions for small businesses for inspiration.
Tip: Don’t forget to close the analytics loop by connecting your big data tools with your CRM system.
Get your team up to speed with big data initiatives
A recent Capgemini study found that although 8/10 businesses have big data projects underway, only 27% can describe their big data initiatives as ‘successful’.
You’ve taken the first step in deciding to become a more data-driven team – go you! Now it’s time to establish what success looks like. Here’s how:
Step 1 – Have clear goals for utilising data that ladder up to your overall marketing goals. If you’re marketing goal is to increase retention rates by X% year-on-year, how can your new insight help you get there?
Step 2 – Clearly define KPI’s for your team according to their individual roles and the data they’ll be using. E.g. if your data is showing opportunities to increase brand sentiment and customer engagement, set your team a KPI to improve it by X% using the data insight available.
Step 3 – Go one step deeper and determine the key metrics that each team member needs to report on to ladder up to those KPI’s. Is customer engagement just measured across social media? Or do you include data that identifies their website visits too?
By clearly defining the metrics, KPI’s and goals of your team, you’ll provide them with clear direction on how they need to utilise data and you’ll gain valuable insight into their marketing activity.
Back up decisions with data
Bit of a no-brainer? Not if you’re part of the 45% of marketers that think data is the most underutilised asset in the business. If you want a truly data-driven marketing team, they need to move beyond just collecting the data. It’s time to start making real analytical decisions based on facts, rather than hunches – especially when it comes to necessary activities like forecasting ROI of new digital channels.
Even though big data comes with its challenges, it isn’t going anywhere. If we’ve collectively managed to create 90% of the world’s data in the last 2 years alone, who knows what the next 2 years will look like? By building a data-driven marketing team now, you’ll be well prepared for whatever the future can bring.
It’s time to face the elephant in the room and empower your team with data-driven processes…
Download the Digital Marketing ROI Forecaster and set your team on the right path to data-driven success.
This article was originally posted on the Lead Forensics website. Read the original article here.
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