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3 minute read
Ever wish you’d had the benefit of hindsight when realising your marketing plan, or a marketing tactic didn’t hit the mark as you’d predicted or hoped?
You’re not alone, we’ve all been there.
We’re all still there. Regularly.
But you can turn regret into hope again simply by getting comfortable with your data and learning how to use it to your advantage.
Turn it from being your achilles heel to your superpower.
Yes, you can be a marketing superhero!
Even if you’re more right brained than left brained.
Yep, you heard me right.
If you’re motivated to be a better marketer and build effective marketing plans, you’re going to need to get comfortable with data… but it’s not as scary as you might think.
It can be easy as…
- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Doing anything for the first time, or doing something that you’re not as strong at can be intimidating.
But remember the first time you tried to ride a bike, drive a car or try out that new recipe? The first time, the first few times were wobbly for sure. But you kept at it, you practised and look at you now.
Apply the same expectations of yourself at work (with data), as you did in those scenarios and you’ll be comfortable with being uncomfortable and learning a new skill in no time.
- Understand your data hierarchy.
Working with data can feel a lot like being Alice in Wonderland, falling down that rabbit hole and forgetting what you were trying to find.
Educating yourself and even visualising your data hierarchy will give you something to anchor to and stay focussed on.
Start from the top: what are your company’s OKRs? I.e. what does business success look like and what are those few core metrics that everyone agrees means the business is hitting its objective?
Then work your way down: what are the marketing-specific data points that show you’re contributing to those few core metrics? What are the corresponding customer behaviours and their data points and naming conventions? Where does that data live?
An example:
Your company objective might be gaining market share, therefore key metrics supporting that growth might be both customer retention and growth into new segments.
You’d want to be able to prove your marketing tactics are working effectively by showing the customers who were exposed to a retention campaign were more likely to stay with the business; and/or the markets you targeted with a new brand partnership are now more likely to consider your company than they were before.
In these scenarios, you’d have either a test vs control group, or a before and after survey to show retained/incremental customers, representing a contribution to market share.
Break the customer journey down into steps and identify where each step lives in your data. I.e. it might start in an ad platform as a click, continue through your website or app as a registration, enquiry or purchase and move through your CRM in combination with sales touchpoints. Over time, these customers may re-purchase or unsubscribe/cancel subscriptions.
Taking the time to educate yourself and become comfortable with the customer steps, the corresponding data points, which platform/s you can observe those data points in and how each data parameter is named will help you prove (or disprove) your marketing tactics contribution or influence on business success.
- Use your understanding of your data hierarchy to analyse performance or brief your data team with increased clarity.
The benefits of spending the time in Step 2 are very rewarding, so bear with it!
You’ll be able to speak the right language and ask better questions when briefing your data team, saving a bunch of time in crossed-wires, making you a pleasure to work with and ultimately get a better, more accurate outcome the first time around.
No data team? No drama!
Given you are clued up on the data parameters you need to look at and where they live, you can give it your best effort and use your CRM or data visualisation tool to see these customers’ conversion. Even if you don’t get it 100% right, you should be able to notice some interesting insights that’ll impress your leader and motivate them to get you some extra support.
You’ll also be able to more easily diagnose where problems might be when your marketing isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped. CTR looks good? But website conversion is lower than anticipated? OK cool, now you know where to spend time optimising.
The more you try this, the more you’ll learn and gain confidence.
Don’t be deterred if you come against genuine data blockers. They exist in every business. Discuss the issue with your leader to see if it can be easily fixed, or whether you’ll need to work together to find a work-around.
Data can be super fun and rewarding, so don’t let that voice in your head tell you it isn’t your thing.
Your marketing (and your leader) will thank you for the effort when you’re working more effectively and seeing results.
