of PPC ad spend fails to produce a single conversion.
of companies that extensively use marketing analytics end up with higher profits than average.
Marketing analytics requires more than just flashy tools. Marketing teams need a strategy that puts all their data in perspective. Here’s how marketing analytics works for most organizations.
Define exactly what you’re hoping to accomplish through your marketing. Start with the overall goal of your marketing strategy, then start drilling down into specific campaigns and marketing channels. Metrics can include return on investment, conversion rate, click rate or brand recognition. You also want to define benchmarks and milestones along the way that will help you evaluate and adapt your marketing techniques.
To get the most benefit from marketing analytics, you’ll want a balanced assortment of techniques and tools. Use analytics to:
Report on the past. By using techniques that look at the past, you can answer questions such as: What campaign elements generated the most revenue last quarter? How did social media campaign A perform against direct mail campaign B? How many leads did we generate from this webinar series vs. that podcast season?
Analyze the present. Determine how your marketing initiatives are performing right now. How are customers engaging with us? Which channels do our most profitable customers prefer? Who is talking about us and where?
Predict or influence the future. Marketing analytics can deliver data-driven predictions that help you shape the future. You can answer questions such as: How can short-term wins be molded into loyalty? How will adding more sales representatives in underperforming regions affect revenue? Which cities should we target next?
Marketing analytics technology is abundant so it can be hard to know which tools you really need. But don’t start there; start with your overall capability. Assess your current capabilities to determine where you are along the analytics spectrum. Then start identifying where the gaps are and develop a strategy for filling them in.
Using data is one of the greatest challenges facing marketing professionals these days. There’s just so. Much. Data! That’s why Step 1 is so important: If you know that what you’re currently doing isn’t helping you reach your goals, then you know it’s time to test and iterate.
Applied holistically, marketing analytics allows for more successful marketing campaigns and a better overall customer experience. Specifically, when acted upon, marketing analytics can lead to better supply and demand planning, price optimization, and robust lead nurturing and management – all of which leads to greater profitability.
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