From insights to impact: how to use data to drive marketing results

Welcome to the world of data-driven marketing, where leveraging data is no longer an option but a critical component of achieving successful marketing outcomes. 

If you hold a marketing management position, it's essential to understand how to harness data-driven insights to gain a better understanding of evolving customer behavior and to make informed decisions. In this article, we'll provide practical guidance on how to transform insights into impactful marketing initiatives that drive measurable results.

To succeed in this new environment, companies must update their modeling techniques to account for the challenges brought on by the pandemic, including shifts in customer behavior, reduced marketing budgets, and remote work conditions. Here are four key areas that organizations should focus on to enhance their modeling precision and drive impactful marketing results:

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Use New and Improved Data for More Accurate Modeling

 Precision marketing is only as good as the data behind it, so organizations need to gather a wide range of information from a variety of sources. They can collect behavioral trends and location-based insights and third-party analytics on their business, customers, and competitors to complement their in-house customer data. Companies that extend their data gathering in these ways can identify upticks in demand and where new customers are coming from, as well as assess which customers in their existing base have increased spending and where lapsed customers have gone.

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Update Algorithms to Reflect Shifting Patterns and New Information

As buyer behavior has changed significantly since the pandemic began, many existing data models are no longer valid. Externalities that once seemed incidental, such as customer mobility, now have outsize importance. To tease out salient behavioral indicators in time to act on them, marketers need continually refreshed data from a variety of sources and at a far more detailed level—looking as deeply as the city-block level in some cases. However, many companies tend to rely on internally derived customer data, using modeling tools that were not built to handle large volumes of data.

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Maximize Marketing ROI through Budget Optimization

With marketing budgets being slashed for most companies, marketing leaders need to identify the highest-impact channels and focus their resources accordingly. Companies can use machine learning algorithms to test and refine their targeting and messaging strategies and optimize their ad spend across channels. They can also use predictive modeling to forecast the impact of different marketing campaigns on key performance indicators, allowing them to allocate resources more effectively.

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Foster an Agile Marketing Culture to Respond Rapidly to Changes

Data-driven marketing works best in agile settings, where teams can test and iterate in sprints. But with many employees working from home, marketing leaders have found it difficult to create an effective cadence. They need to establish clear communication channels, collaborate effectively across functions, and empower their teams to make decisions based on data.

As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, it's becoming increasingly evident that data-driven marketing is the key to achieving long-term success. By utilizing insights gained from data, businesses can drive significant customer acquisition and growth, even in times of disruptive change. The key to achieving these results is to transform data insights into impactful marketing initiatives that resonate with customers. By taking the steps outlined in this article to update modeling techniques and embrace the power of data, marketers can anticipate shifts in customer behavior and stay ahead of the competition. So, start using data to drive your marketing results and make an impact on your business's success.