It’s All in the Data – 5 Huge Benefits of Data-Driven Marketing

For hundreds of years, information has been an invaluable commodity for marketers. It's even more important in the digital marketing sphere.

The most successful marketers meticulously track their campaigns and collect relevant data. Data driven marketing will revolutionize online commerce in the years to come. Here is what Rick Vugts, founder of Hiresquare, a popular gig marketplace, told WordStream in a recent interview.

“There are multiple ways in which we use data for marketing on our site. We use PPC data to optimize our web copy for SEO. Sure there are keyword tools and whatnot, but they are all estimation tools. By running a PPC campaign for just a short amount of time we learn about the actual search volume and we get all kinds of combinations by looking at the keyword query report.”

Here are several key benefits.

Expedited Results

According to CMO, 67% of marketers felt speed was one of the primary benefits of data driven marketing. Data allows marketers to optimize their campaigns more quickly. They may see noticeable results in a matter of weeks, rather than a few months.

Improved Product Development

In 2011, Harvard Business Review published an article on product failure. The authors cited a poor understanding of the market as the single biggest reason products fail.

Data driven marketing significantly reduces the product failure rate. Brands have a much better understanding of their target audience, so they can develop products to better suit their needs.

Introduce Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is a game-changer for digital marketing. Brands are utilizing a variety of marketing automation platforms, including Hootsuite, Hatchbuck and Net Results. In GetRespone's new marketing automation blog, they address many of these new platforms.

Marketing automation will become even more popular with the growth of big data. Balihoo and other organizations argue that it will transform the digital marketing industry in the very near future.  Susan Tormollen, Vice-President of Marketing at Balihoo recently held an interview with Marketo, where she discussed the benefits.

“By using marketing automation,” said Tormollen, “you are able to better understand your customer's preferences and desires. This translates into both a stronger relationship with the contact when they are in the early prospect stage of the relationship, all the way through to when they become a customer.”

Her opinions were echoed by Drew McLellan of The McLellan Group.

“Automation allows you to create a user experience that puts the user in the driver’s seat,” stated McLellan. “They can access the exact information they want, how and when they want it. But every potential customer isn’t necessarily going to want exactly the same information.  With automation, you can also create multiple paths, so each person can have a different experience, based on their own needs and interests.”

Optimize Customer Experience

GlobalDMA conducted a study that found 49% of brands were using data driven marketing to enhance their customer experience. They can conduct customer satisfaction surveys and identify areas for improvement.

This is particularly important for brands in highly innovative industries. They often need to spend $250,000 or more on his research and development to bring a new product to market.

Scale Across Different Marketing Channels

Customers respond differently to various marketing channels. Unfortunately, this means you can't just copy marketing campaigns from Adwords to Facebook or display marketing. However, you can still take advantage of established trends.

Trends that you identify in one marketing channel are beneficial for numerous reasons:

• You can identify days of the week and hours that customers are most receptive to your ads. This allows you to day part your campaigns on new traffic sources.
• You can identify images and text that seem to work the best. As long as you're targeting a similar demographic, they should still perform well.
• You can monitor how conversion rates vary from day to day, which helps you understand how long to run your campaigns while collecting new data.

You'll still have to test some elements of your campaign from scratch, such as targeting options, which vary considerably across advertising platforms. However, you will have a huge head start if you have collected a lot of data from other marketing campaigns.