While this may be no great surprise, the key to great data analytics in marketing is in being able to analyze data thoroughly in order to use it to engage users in real time.
Data analytics can deliver great ROI and personalization abilities for marketers and data-driven solutions can result in highly accurate insights into customer behavior, but only if you know where to start. Only then can you improve marketing activity and ROI.
Indeed, having the ability to collect and analyze data easily and then turn it into actionable insights that feed back into the business – fast – is crucial in a world where there is so much information available on consumer activity, their likes and dislikes.
However, before you embark on data analytics in marketing, here are 5 top tips to consider:
1. Ensure your data is clean
There’s no use analyzing data if it is of poor quality. You wouldn’t expect great performance from a badly maintained car, so don’t neglect your data either. Your data is your most important business asset, so audit it and make an effort to improve its quality before you start trying to analyze it.
2. Know what data you have and make sure you can access it all
To get a full picture of what’s going on, you will need to be able to access data from various systems. Chances are that you have CRM, HR and ERP systems full of information as well as web-based tools full of data. Whatever your setup, make sure your data is centralized for all to access. Ensure people aren’t storing important data in siloed spreadsheets on their own devices.
3. Have a clear goal in mind
Figure out first what you are trying to achieve with your analytics before you embark on your analytic journey. Too often companies start analyzing data without having a clear goal in mind and they end up trying to find out everything in one go. So, take a step back and define the goals that you want to meet when running analytics projects.
4. Use the right tool for the right job
The term Loading...big data is thrown around by many, and there are tools for just about every way of making sense of it. Once you know what your goal is, make sure you use the right technology to meet your objectives. For some analytics, you could use open source technology, for others you might need a fast analytic database. Do not try to shoehorn your analytic workloads into technology that just wasn’t designed to cope with them.
5. Stay focused
There is a lot of data that you can do a lot of things with. Don’t try to do it all at once; keep your focus on what you are trying to find out and don’t get side-tracked by anything else that might come up. It’s a common occurrence that companies end up frustrated with analytics because they have lost sight of what they were trying to achieve in the first place. So, focus is absolutely key.
In today’s digital marketplace, having accurate data analytics can make or break a company. If analytic projects are not run the right way, brands risk being left behind and will struggle to remain competitive or even just keep pace with the market.
So why not get started today and find out how you can get started with data analytics?