How Business Owners See Better ROI with Data-Driven Marketing

Marketing isn’t optional if you want your business to grow. You need to reach new leads and keep your offerings top of mind for existing customers. However, the wrong steps here could lead to massive overspending without much in the way of return. 

No business can sustain that sort of effort for long. You must prioritize marketing strategies based on data analysis that empower your decision-making. It’s better to reach 10 qualified prospects than 100 people who aren’t likely to convert. 

Data-driven marketing delivers the ROI that business owners need to see. But how does it do that? What should you expect?

Using data to drive marketing strategies and tactics

Data-driven marketing is based not on conjecture or guesswork, but on verifiable information. It enables you to make informed decisions that maximize the value of your marketing dollars, resulting in dramatically improved ROI over time. Let’s look at a few of the ways it does this.

Getting your message in front of the right people

The first and arguably most important benefit of data-driven marketing is that it enables you to get your message in front of the right people. There’s little use in advertising to people who do not need what you offer. 

There’s also no point in marketing to those who might need your product or service, but who aren’t going to purchase anytime soon. Those might make great additions to the top of your sales funnel, and you should certainly invest in creating evergreen marketing materials that can inform them and begin their journey toward your brand. 

However, the lion’s share of your marketing efforts should be directed at those people most likely to convert. Data-driven marketing allows you to do just that with an understanding of your target audience at a very deep level. You can collect data from social media, customer demographics, and previous customer interactions to create buyer personas. Then, use those personas to tailor your marketing efforts to specific audience segments. 

Understanding wants, needs, behaviors, and pain points

To truly market effectively to your audience, you must understand them. What drives them to seek out a product or service like yours? Why do they behave the way they do? Is it a want that makes them seek out offerings like yours, or is it something deeper — a need or pain point? 

Data-driven marketing allows you to tailor content to your audience segments based on these factors. Realize that no single marketing message will resonate with every potential customer. Specificity should be the rule.

You must address their unique motivating factors, whether that’s a want or need. For instance, you’d use very different marketing toward a customer who wanted to purchase your athletic shoes because they’re stylish and someone who was thinking about buying them to boost their performance in trail running. 

Ensuring you’re using the right channels

Where do your potential customers spend the most time online? Is it better to email them or engage on social media? Which social networks have the highest concentration of potential leads? 

You have a finite marketing budget and a limited team. Your decisions regarding marketing channels should honor those limits while maximizing your potential reach. In other words, you need to know what channels give you the most bang for your buck and return on your efforts. 

Data-driven marketing allows you to delve into customer behavior and preferences so that you can make these sorts of decisions. For instance, what’s the density of potential leads on LinkedIn versus Facebook? Depending on the answer, you might be better off spending your time and money on one network rather than the other. 

It’s not just social, either. Other channels should play greater or lesser roles depending on your audience’s preferences and usage habits. Those channels include email, voice search, social commerce (as opposed to basic social media marketing), content marketing, influencer marketing, and more.

Delivering personalized marketing content

Finally, we come to the ultimate takeaway — the primary reason that data-driven marketing can deliver the ROI you need. We’ve already mentioned aspects of this. There is no one-size-fits-all marketing message. You can’t send the same marketing content to everyone in your audience and expect to see your campaign perform well. 

We’ve talked about customizing your marketing collateral based on lead preferences and demographic information. However, you should take things deeper. Personalized marketing content allows you to create a direct connection with the audience member and your business. 

How do you personalize content? Some aspects are pretty self-explanatory. For instance, using their first and last name is a good start. You can also use their product search history, previous purchases from your business, interactions on social media or other channels, and so much more. It’s all about creating a customized, personal experience that makes each lead feel like you’re communicating with just them.

Getting the bigger picture that you need for marketing success

Data-driven marketing can only succeed if you have the information necessary to tailor your campaigns. Some of that data can come from social listening and other methods. However, don’t neglect the vast trove of data you already have. Every interaction leads have with your team, from emails and web forms to phone calls and previous purchases, can help you create an impactful, successful marketing campaign. Tap into the rich data that exists in your CRM to help gather the info that can later be used in your marketing efforts.

At Smith.ai, our virtual receptionists help you harvest that information through call intelligence, metadata, call recordings, and transcriptions. We can also offer lead intake and screening to ensure you’re spending time with the right leads — and pass that information directly into your CRM through our many integrations. Isn’t it time your marketing efforts delivered better ROI? 

To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai.