What’s working optimally and what needs fixing in your brand’s efforts to engage consumers?
Answering this question goes beyond what can be guesstimated by gut instinct. Manual processes also fall far short at organizing company data to the point where it can be used to gain insights on consumers’ behaviors and preferences. Instead, marketers who leverage analytics are getting to know their customers better, and are better able to ascertain what is and isn’t working when it comes to engaging them.
Technology is your best friend in this regard. Deciding where to focus your marketing efforts for the greatest gain depends upon analytical enablement in three areas supported by technology tools. According to a white paper from SAS, these areas are: understanding the customer, developing usable insights and putting those insights to work.
Customer behavior and value: Understanding both customer behavior and customer value should be your priorities in getting to know potential and existing customers. How a customer engages with your company and how much value he or she creates for your business is critical for determining the resources you dedicate to him or her.
Actionable Insights: Once you understand how your customers operate and how valuable they are (or are not) to your organization, it’s time to tailor your marketing messages to their interests. A complete customer profile can help you predict the products that will interest them and the actions they may take.
Personalized messaging: Put your insights to work by making them part of your daily marketing processes and marketing campaigns. No longer will your brand messaging encompass broad strokes and generic messages. Now you can produce tightly focused and personalized messaging for each customer to guarantee the best possible outcomes.
Exploring Your Data
Your first goal in leveraging analytics to better engage customers is to understand key targets thoroughly. The best way to do this, per the white paper, is to explore customer data from: CRM software, transactions, campaign performance, mobile apps and websites. Any data available should be considered.
The challenge for many organizations is collecting and organizing their data. The more customer data that can be compiled in one place, the more comprehensive and beneficial the assessment of the data can be. In other words, siloed data is the bane of your business.
To address this hurdle, proactive organizations are looking to new technology tools that integrate analytics with data visualization. These create more compelling insights using data integration, data exploration, dashboards and predictive analytics than do traditional data visualization tools that focus on creating charts, graphs and reports.
A valuable feature of the technology is an interface that allows even non-technical users to integrate various data sources to compile comprehensive views. This functionality enables marketers to access data quicker than ever, substantially improving agility.
Collecting Performance Data
Consider your usual struggle to attain campaign performance data. With fast access to key performance metrics, marketers can strategically develop new campaigns with an even greater likelihood of success by drawing on lessons learned. For example, with the results of A/B subject line testing, crafting a new impactful subject line would be in the bag.
Predictive models attainable within new data visualization technology will help you determine how likely a customer is to purchase a product based on previous purchases. If you suspect a customer is not a likely target in this scenario, the software allows you to easily export that information and share it with departments that can work to more actively engage this customer.
Get Started
Technology in the form of software for collecting, organizing and assessing customer data is your ticket to a better understanding of your customers’ behaviors and preferences. With this knowledge in hand, you’re powered to develop insights that you can deploy in day-to-day interactions with consumers, engaging a wider swath of them across points of contact.
Reach into the market and grab hold of data analytics technology. Incorporate it into your marketing processes to begin delivering improved business outcomes from your marketing efforts.
