In today’s dynamic marketing landscape, data-driven marketing isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a necessity. In their 2024 State of Marketing trends report, HubSpot reveals that “one in five marketers noted a growing importance of utilizing data to inform marketing strategy from 2022 to 2023.” As marketers, staying ahead of the curve requires more than just creativity; it’s about leveraging the power of data to inform decisions.
This is where business intelligence data steps in, providing us with valuable insights into consumer behavior, market trends, and campaign performance. Let’s explore how these data-driven decisions reshape marketing, enabling businesses and organizations to target audiences more effectively and achieve sustainable growth.
Understanding Data-Driven Marketing
At Overit, we use top tools like Semrush to help us streamline our data-driven marketing strategy. They define data-driven marketing as “the process of gathering and using data to inform marketing decisions and personalize the customer experience.” The benefits of data-driven marketing versus traditional marketing include:
- Enhanced targeting and personalization
- Improved campaign effectiveness and ROI
- Better understanding of customer behavior and preferences
- More informed decision-making
- Increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness
- Competitive advantage through data-driven insights
- Ability to track and measure campaign performance accurately
- Opportunity for continuous optimization and improvement
Some challenges come along with data-driven marketing, and these include collecting and analyzing data (and there is a lot of data), an overall lack of data literacy, and – of course – the always fun topic of data compliance and regulations. But don’t feel like you’re on your own with this. There’s a way to find partners to help. We’ll get to that part, later!
The Role of Business Intelligence in Data-Driven Marketing
Business intelligence involves gathering, analyzing, and converting raw data into valuable insights that inform strategic decision-making. It is not just the statistical data and how it’s presented. It’s understanding what that data means.
Types of data analysis
According to HotJar, some types of data analysis methods include descriptive analytics, regression analysis, and predictive analysis. Let’s explore how you can use these methods to understand your data.
- Descriptive analytics: This is simply recording data results from the past, such as the number of likes and shares a social post had or the open rate of an email. This is important for benchmarking (understanding what your business would consider above-average or below-average results), and to check if you’re meeting your goals. However, this method doesn’t explain why your audience reacted a certain way. You’ll need to use other methods to go deeper.
- Regression analysis: This involves measuring the relationship between independent but related data points, predicting how one could affect the other, and sussing out causation versus correlation. For marketing, regression analysis could be used to determine how different levels of advertising spending could affect sales. By analyzing historical data on sales and advertising spend, they could create a regression chart that predicts sales based on various levels of advertising spend. You could even analyze multiple points, for example, starting with a question like “How do our social media posts, ad spend, and follower count affect our website traffic?” This can help you paint a fuller picture of how different factors influence each other.
- Predictive analysis: As the name suggests, this method involves using your existing data to predict future trends. You will need a large amount of data and a specialized tool to help with predictive analysis, but it can be used to help drive strategic decisions in many areas including product development, customer segmentation, campaign optimization, and more.
Before even thinking about which types of analytics models to use, you’ll want to start with a question. What is a specific question you’re trying to figure out? Go back to science class. Start with your hypotheses. “I think by running this ad I will see more web visitors.” Now you set out to find the answer to that question. Trying to analyze your data without a clear question in mind can lead you down a rabbit hole with more questions than answers, but being disciplined in setting your goals can help bring tangible insights to your team.
Another consideration is gathering and understanding your data in the first place, and making sure it is “clean”–reliable and accurate. This could mean making sure your website is correctly feeding into Google Analytics, or all your sources are added into Google Looker Studio.
This process includes data point identification, data gathering, and data cleaning and standardization. All of these are critical parts of a data analyst’s responsibilities and role, and will also pose key challenges. Common challenges include technical issues, data format inconsistencies, and integration errors. If you’re not working with a digital agency, having a technically-minded person open to learning will be important.
What do I need to know about Data Privacy?
Our ability to collect data is extremely valuable to our job as marketers, but of course, data privacy is the other side of the coin. By being transparent about your data collection practices you can maintain a trusting relationship with your audience.
- Transparency and Consent: Be transparent with how you’re collecting and using data by creating an easily accessible Privacy Policy on your website. When it comes to email, this means allowing people to easily manage their preferences and opt out of receiving certain emails. You also may want to consider adding a double opt-in which will help reduce spam and increase engagement.
- Compliance with Regulations: Stay up-to-date with data privacy regulations and guidelines. For example, Google and Yahoo recently added new authentication requirements to cut down on spam. Always follow CAN-SPAM compliance. You don’t want to be marked as a spam sender!
- Data Security and Protection: Make sure the only people who have access to customer data are the people who need it. Depending on your industry, you may want to consider working with a third-party cybersecurity partner who can audit your data and help you create policies and procedures to keep it safe.
How Overit Helps You Use Business Intelligence Data
At Overit, we like to say, “Data is the star of our show and you’ll find that show playing all day long on a screen near you.” What does that mean exactly? It’s a simple answer, but we like words, so we’ll explain it as best we can…
We create easy-to-use digital dashboards that gather all your important business and marketing information in one place. These dashboards update in real-time, so you always have the latest data at your fingertips. This helps you make smarter decisions for your business with confidence. Our dashboards start with standard Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which are fully customized according to your specific requirements, strategies, and preferences.
What makes our dashboarding great? Besides the fact that we use dashboarding as a verb, they’re always accessible via a URL, and we also follow up with monthly or quarterly reporting depending on your preference.
Want to get started? Learn more about business intelligence data best practices at Overit and how we can help you develop a data-driven marketing strategy.
