Wouldn’t it be nice to take the guesswork out of your marketing? With good data, you can.
The verdict is well and truly in. Data has become an ‘indispensible asset’ to marketing and advertising efforts.
That’s according to a new study, which also showed 80% of 3,200 thought leaders believe data has a ‘critical’ role influencing marketing and business decisions.
It’s a sentiment that has grown over the past few years. There’s now enough evidence and dollar value results to know that good data will have a positive impact on the bottom line and customer relationships.
And who doesn’t want that?
Here’s how DCA can help your marketing become more data-driven and hit the right mark.
Ensure your database can deliver
Do you ever have that moment of doubt when you’re about to send a campaign that your message might never reach the intended recipient?
Your hesitation is probably justified. The 2016 B2B Marketing Data Benchmark report from Dun & Bradstreet analysed 695 million records against four key indicators, including email delivery. The records received an average rating of ‘questionable’. Hardly encouraging.
Getting the basics (email, phone number and address) right is essential.
But it’s not always easy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says 43% of Australians have changed address in the last five years. We frequently change or create new emails, and may get new phone numbers when switching service providers.
At DCA, we saw this first-hand through our database migration and enhancement work with Diabetes New South Wales (DNSW). Its member details were held in two different – and completely siloed – CRM systems. Each contained around 350,000 records. We found an unacceptable overlap of customer information, inconsistencies and incorrect data throughout the two databases.
What did this mean from a business perspective? Letters were sent to the wrong address and marketing opportunities missed. Time, resources and costs were wasted.
DCA cleansed and enhanced DNSW’s database. This work immediately increased membership with 1,000 new paid members and lost leads identified. From then, more effective data-driven marketing generated in excess of $30,000 (from just the first campaigns) over and above projections.
A clean and accurate database is critical. You must get the basics right if you want your marketing goals to become a reality.
Build a picture of your customer
Progressive profiling is gathering customer data – bit by bit — to help you build an individual picture of your customers. The data you collect will help you understand who they are, what makes them tick and what they want from your relationship.
Where to start? You could begin with a simple customer survey to get the essentials, and then ask more in the welcome/on-boarding series to build more of picture.
DCA can help you to integrate this customer data with your CRM systems and other customer touch points. This means you can capture more data every time your customer interacts with you, regardless of the touch point.
Segment for success
We know that customers who have already interacted with or bought from your brand are more likely to make a repeat purchase. Data allows you to target these customers to maximise cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.
When you segment your customers and prospects into the right groups, you can be more efficient with your messaging and marketing.
Regardless of what segment your business needs to identify – gender, age, income, buying preferences, occupation, etc – DCA can use your data to find the segments, or combinations of segments, that you want to reach.
Use data to drive reports and marketing
There’s a saying that if something can’t be measured, you can’t manage it. And, perhaps most importantly, you also can’t improve on it.
Centralised and accurate data puts to rest these concerns. Good data will help your business measure, track and understand what your customers are doing, how they are doing it and when and where.
DCA’s custom-built Marketing Data Mart brings all your data together. This allows for deeper insights, analysis, profiling and reporting. You can track campaigns and relevant data feeding back into the Data Mart, giving you a one-stop-shop for your reporting.
From there you can aggregate, segment test and fine-tune your marketing.
Take personalisation to the next level
As technology becomes more sophisticated, we increasingly expect the businesses and services we interact with to speak to us as individuals. We’re more likely to engage when we they do.
The Major League Soccer (MLS) in the USA is a great example of how it converted data into meaningful conversations, and impressive sales. MLS used Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud*, which used available data to personalise email content and create 1:1 customer journeys.
The result? A massive 41% increase in open rates and 169% increase in clicks. This culminated in a 234% increase in sales. A result anyone would be happy with.
Whatever stage you are at in deciding how to get your data to work harder and better for you, get in touch. We can work with you as a partner or third-party provider, and in whatever capacity you need.
*DCA is a Salesforce partner but can work with any preferred technology partners.
