In marketing today, data reigns supreme. Many influencers in the industry are calling data the new oil – which is fairly accurate. Data is changing the world today as oil once did in the early 1900’s.
However, with all this information being collected, companies become lost within terabytes of reports, spreadsheets, databases and data lakes that are hard to understand at first glance. Moreover, even when data teams can make sense of the information, the issue becomes how to activate on this business intelligence. Creating a data activation strategy can seem like a daunting task, but with some simple steps, creating a high-class digital strategy can become second nature.
What Is A Data Activation Strategy?
First things first, what is a data activation strategy? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A data activation strategy means using information and analytics to understand historical customer behavior and creating a marketing initiative around the discovered insights.
In layman’s terms, we’re going to use customer data, understand what’s happened historically, and then build a marketing campaign for the future.
Data activation strategies are extremely effective because your marketing is no longer based on assumption. With historical customer information, you can get down to the truth of how your clients actually behave, their demographics, buying patterns and more. An effective data activation strategy helps with your digital marketing and traditional marketing campaigns, leading to more effective targeting and better ways to measure results.
How To Implement Data Activation
As stated earlier, implementation of a data activation strategy can seem like a very daunting task. With appropriate understanding of how data is flowing through your organization and communication between teams, pulling customer information can be easy.
Let’s start where you can find data. If you’re a retail store, data is usually stored within the POS system. A great example would be an e-commerce platform like Shopify. When looking at your dashboard, customer information can be located on the left hand side under “Customers”. Exporting this information to your computer in a .CSV file is painless. POS systems usually will pull the name, address, purchase history, pricing, and if it’s an ecommerce store, email and phone number.
If you’re a service oriented company, like Untitled, usually your data is stored in a CRM platform. When asking for potential client information, be sure that your contact form is asking for name, email, company and phone number. You don’t have to require these fields, but giving the option to include it will provide you with better targeting methods in the future. Exporting a .CSV file is usually just as easy to download.
Creating Action On Data
Once data has been pulled, some basic data analytics and visual dashboards can be used to showcase the historical interactions your customers performed with you. For example, maybe a trend is found in your data where one product is bought in conjunction with another product. This is extremely valuable information to know – products can be tailored together on your website and in your future advertising campaigns.
Another interesting insight you could gain is an updated understanding of your target demographic. Previously, it could have been assumed your target market was between 20-25 years old. However, customers addresses and behaviors indicate a much older audience, somewhere between 35-45 years of age.
All of this information can be utilized for your next marketing campaign. For traditional marketing, maybe you cater your direct mail campaign to target an older demographic with products they’d be interested in having, while also spending a bit more of your budget on TV and radio, as these are common platforms used by an older demographic. Also, utilizing those email addresses in your CRM make for an incredible Facebook Custom Audience campaign, mapping the email to a specific Facebook profile. Creating a lookalike audience also allows you to target similar profiles who haven’t bought from you in the past, now giving you access to a brand new customer.
In Summary
Data activation can be done in a variety of different ways, and Untitled can be the medium to help your business understand how to activate on valuable customer information. Untitled specializes in data driven marketing and data analytics, giving your business a better understanding of historical data and how customers interact with you.
To learn more about Untitled, dive into around website. We have a very different approach than other agencies. When you’re ready, reach out through our contact form. Our team is ready to build strategies to help you grow.
