Communicated Content – According to Ronn Torossian, a PR executive, trying to do anything in the dark is bound to be unsuccessful, and most people know this fact. However, it might come as a surprise to learn that over 60% of companies have decided to ignore any data that is generated from their marketing analytics when they’re trying to make decisions about their marketing campaigns. This type of strategy is reckless and even dangerous because when a company ignores the valuable marketing data generated from promotional efforts and operates in the dark, it can make very time-consuming or expensive bad decisions that can negatively impact the business itself. That’s why companies should start relying on their marketing analytics and data that are being generated from their campaigns to reap all of the benefits of optimizing their overall marketing efforts.
Analytics
Marketing analytics is simply all the data that’s being used by companies to assess the performance of any marketing effort that the company has pursued. According to research, the percentage of campaigns that utilized marketing analytics to make future marketing decisions has ranged from around 30 to 40% in the last decade or so. Although these numbers might seem very low, they still show how companies can utilize marketing analytics to improve their promotional efforts and gain a competitive advantage.
Ronn Torossian On Importance
Ronn Torossian says the first thing companies need to do before delving into utilizing their marketing analytics to improve their promotional efforts is to understand which stats to use and why these analytics are so important.
Although some companies might think that data and analytics aren’t important for their businesses, plenty of companies have created very successful campaigns and generated incredibly beneficial results solely because they’ve been able to follow the data that has been generated. One of the biggest benefits of analytics from marketing campaigns is that businesses then get the ability to understand better the details and any big picture trends in marketing which helps them, in turn, predict future behaviors and results.
Where To Find the Right Analytics
Data collection, aggregation, and organization are the first steps in tracking progress toward goals, gaining customer insights, and making strategic decisions. We must distinguish between first-hand or second-hand to better understand customer data.
Your organization collects first-hand data directly from your users. Since it provides information about your audience’s behavior, feelings, and thoughts, it is considered the most valuable data type. A close competitor’s data about its own customers is considered second-hand data.
Despite the availability of second-hand sources, first-hand data is most reliable because it directly represents your customers’ behaviors, beliefs, and feelings. Data collected from first-party sources can be collected in several ways.
Content Interactions
To uncover a user’s motivation for buying, their stage in the marketing funnel, and the type of content that interests them, organic content – such as blog posts, emails, social media posts, and podcasts – can be tracked and can help uncover the user’s purchase motivation.
Advertising Interactions
The same goes for tracking engagement with a digital ad you’ve paid for displaying on another website, at the top of search results, or sponsoring content from another brand. Knowing where your customers come from and at what stage of the funnel your ads are seen is crucial to determining where your advertising is most effective.
A/B Testing Data
During A/B testing, you compare user interactions with a changed and an unchanged version of your website. A/B tests can be used to determine, for example, whether users click on an arrow instead of a circle if you hypothesize that they will. You could set up a control group and a test group. It would be possible to determine whether your hypothesis was correct based on the data collected from the interactions between the two groups. You can gather behavioral data and test ideas with A/B tests.
Website Surveys
Website surveys are a great way to get feedback from current and potential customers on their experiences with your product, why they purchased it, what could be improved, and if they would recommend it to others. Users can rate their experience on your website through a pop-up survey or a multi-question interview.
Let the Data Be Your Guide
More specifically in regard to results, companies should rely on analytics to better understand the return on investment they are getting from their promotional efforts. This can help determine which strategies or campaigns need to end and which can handle a bit more investment. Furthermore, through marketing analytics, companies can also learn anything they need to know for any future marketing campaigns they make.
Lastly, the most successful companies and marketing campaigns tend to rely on five or more tools for marketing analytics. These companies are nearly 40% more likely to improve the performance of their marketing campaigns because they rely on vast amounts of data to guide their decision-making process.
