Since the arrival of the digital age, a world of data has been at our fingertips. But gathering and organising the data was just the beginning, it’s the analysis and interpretation that tells the full story.   

Ultimately, it’s about discovering how customers interact with your brand.

Armed with this knowledge, you can make fact-based decisions, optimise your marketing budget and drive business results. So, how do you get started? 

• Set your goals 
• Focus on your customers 
• Choose your channels 
• Set up your metrics 
• Analyse and interpret your results

How can you expect to create relevant and personalised marketing campaigns if you haven’t deciphered the data about your clients and their behaviour?  

Use your data to be intelligent.  

Understand who your best customers are, how you acquired them, what they do with you and why. Then use the information to figure out how you can replicate that winning combination.  

Analyse the right data. 

Campaign strategies based on real intelligence are more likely to be successful, but with so much data available, where do you start? When building out any marketing campaign, it is crucial to establish your foundations: touchpoints, metrics, and analytics.  

Touchpoints: Identify and understand each of the touchpoints (online and offline) along the customer’s journey to purchase. Ask yourself what role each channel plays in driving your customers to make purchase decisions.  

Metrics: Your metrics for each campaign should be set up to align with your core company goals. If your company’s biggest goal is to increase profits, then your marketing metrics should show how your campaign contributed to profits.  

It is also important that your metrics are used within context. For example, the number of views on a video should be compared to the number of views of similar videos launched by comparable companies. Campaign success can also be measured in the context of the campaign brief – if the brief was aimed at finding new customers but sales came from existing customers then the campaign missed its mark (albeit with some great learnings for next time).  

Analytics: The real value in all this data is being able to decipher the numbers and understand what they are telling you and what actions should be taken. With today’s digital analytics tools you can prove the incremental effect of marketing investments, you can experiment and make changes mid-flight when things aren’t working.  

Data can be a great storyteller. 

Used the right way, data can make for a cracking yarn. Use it to educate, inspire and call people to action. Don’t be afraid to use your data to tell the market about your successes and your market insight. It informs your expertise.  

So, get started now by taking stock of the information you already have in your data warehouse and then deciphering the meaning of the intelligence it affords you; translating that into effective campaigns.