Does Data Drive Your Decisions?

I am a fact based marketer.  I believe that the best marketing decisions and actions are a result of business intelligence, detailed analysis and data insights.  What is fun about doing this kind of marketing today is the plethora of data sources and information out there for us to use.  In fact, I am amazed at how much business intelligence is out there, even though I've been using it for many years.  Companies like SymphonyIRI have been providing CPG marketers business insights for decades.  Experian Simmons and MRI provide consumer and media usage data and Nielsen delivers media and marketing intelligence for both traditional and digital applications.  Household list companies like Acxiom and Experian maintain extensive information about all of us.  And this doesn't even count all our own internal data we collect and can potentially use to make decisions.

The challenge for us all is how do we avoid "analysis paralysis" and cull top insights from the reams of data at our fingertips.  As a marketing leader, your most valuable asset, in my opinion, is a marketing analyst who can help you turn data into actionable information. As you create your marketing departments, make sure this position is one of your first hires.  The best laid marketing plans are those that start with the end goal in mind.  If you do not have those metrics in place, then creating campaigns and marketing plans is, at best, a lottery. 

Everyone knows the old saying:  "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half," generally attributed to John Wanamaker.  Today, that statement is no longer true.  There are many tools and business intelligence systems available to assist you.

Do you have the right systems in place to use your data?  Fortunately, there are many companies that can help in this area too.  There are the large database providers used by many major companies such as Oracle or SAS.  But using customer relationship management tools is not exclusive to those with large databases and a lot of money.  FreeCRM provides even the most frugal of us access to the tools to make data driven decisions.

Today, there is no reason at all to not know what part of your marketing is working and not working.  You will insure your own success by implementing these tools to make data driven decisions that improve your results and performance. 

Some information to consider collecting and maintaining:

Customers:
-  Name and address
-  Product usage
-  How they found you
-  Key dates (birthday, last purchase, etc.)
-  Demographics and geographics
-  Lifestyle information

Marketing:
-  Lead source
-  Cost per lead
-  Total impressions by source
-  Cost per impression
-  Conversions (lead to impression)
-  Sales conversions
-  Cost per sale

These are just a few basic examples of the kind of data that you might be collecting.    In designing your business intelligence systems, first ask yourself, what will I do with this information and how will I use it to make better decisions?  For example, if you collect birthday data, how will you treat that customer differently by knowing that information?  Will you offer them a discount on that day?  In 2009 Disney conducted a promotion for a free park pass on your birthday.  It was a good use of the data that provided a real value to consumers and to them.

The same holds true for your marketing performance metrics.  Once you know those figures, how will you adjust?  One of the ways I have used lead and sales conversion figures was to understand which tactics delivered the best return on investment.  In combination with cost data, we were able to figure out how to adjust our marketing budgets to insure we were getting the best performance possible by moving our spends to those tactics that delivered higher volume at a lower cost.  This also allowed our sales teams to work more productively since the prospects we were driving to them were more likely to convert.

Are you using data to drive your decisions?  Most of us do to some degree, but how can you become better?  How can you turn your data into business intelligence?  Finding this answer will help you drive performance and success.