Improve web marketing campaigns with data
Posted on 26. Sep, 2009 by Franz in Web Marketing
Quality marketing campaigns feed on quality data
The one mistake many Marketers often overlook is data collection. It’s as if universities and colleges don’t teach their students about the importance of data in modern and traditional-driven marketing campaigns. To some marketers, they get so comfortable with their job that they even overlook analysis reporting and worse, data transfer & tally to improve the next marketing campaign. If you’re in the industry for a while, you’d probably see all of these already.
If you don’t believe me, check around and see what I’ve just said above is true. If it is, this serves a question: “What is the quality of today’s Bachelor in Marketing course?” Even if the degree covers this topic, where is this placed to practice in real-life situations?
For each and every marketing campaign you do, there is no excuse for you not to collect data. With these data, you can:
- Look at current and historical results of campaigns. Make a comparison chart and look at what works and what doesn’t.
- Better understand possible connections and networks surrounding your target market and marketing campaign.
- Use this data for forecasting and to improve your next campaign planning.
- Prepare better presentations using real-time data rather than general data scattered around the Web.
- Give yourself a piece of mind when it comes to market segmentation.
- Satisfy your own company’s need for market understanding. Also, all data collected are worth a lot of money.
In my previous post about “Checking Your Analytics“, I wrote a checklist on what a layman marketer can do without even having the need to understand programming language. All they need is the Help Section in their favorite analytics website and voila, job done.
Understanding your demographics from data
Not everyone can understand how these nitty-gritty details can help marketers a lot. Database collection doesn’t end at emails alone, albeit their name and phone number. There are several ways you can help yourself understand your company’s audiences:
- Look into historical metrics. Segment different types according to purchasing power, age group, mentality, frequency of purchasing activities, data requisition volume, etc. If you don’t have these, start collecting now.
- Set a base trending factor to things that happen at that particular period: Recession; investor entry, political influences, change of laws/regulations, natural & man-made disasters, etc. This tells you about your audience’s cultural influence or behavior towards change.
- Check trends and compare. Use Google to track trends and search volume indicies to compare it with your marketing campaign activities. Then use base trending factors to balance up your suggestions of what happened. Remember, you need to know what happened. So suggest then review to see if your suggestions make sense.
- Product/Service change (or sudden increase in competition) and its aftermath. Sometimes, a small change in product/services or maybe just bad customer service can put a dent to your sales. Or, if you have a good idea one day and has shown its growth potential, soon you will have followers. And they are quick.
Of course, I’m always open to ideas, suggestions and comments to the above. Feel free to comment on the form below or retweet this post to see what your fellow friends or marketers have to say about this topic.
