The phrase “data driven” has become a major business buzzword with companies possessing a data-driven nature reporting significantly higher profits than ones that do not.

So data driven has become a rally cry. What’s most important isn’t the data alone; it’s what you do with the data.

You need to see the forest for the trees. Unfortunately, data makes it all too easy to focus on the leaves!

4 secrets to succeeding with data-driven marketing

Here are four secrets to transforming your marketing with data:

1. Start small. Be focused on how you begin. Think crawl, walk, run. Keep the customer in the bulls-eye. Look first at an online ad campaign. Try a few different approaches. Have an objective against how you are measuring. Keep your budgets small. This is a process that takes time and few organizations have patience as a virtue.
2. Test & learn. Be flexible and be ready to change based on what’s working and what isn’t. The goal here is to learn, make mistakes and try new avenues. It doesn’t matter if you’re creating new creative, adding or deleting key search terms or even targeting a new demographic.
3. Build on success. As you discover approaches that work (are resonating with customers), begin the process of scaling up.
4. Document your knowledge. Really you’re doing this along the way so you know what it is you are trying. And really you’re sharing your successes throughout the organization, gaining credibility and shifting resources toward “proven” marketing programs.

Data proves your marketing works to the CEO and CFO

At the end of the day, you want to be able to solve your customer’s problems. And that’s the real power of data-driven marketing: less gut instinct and more knowledge.

It is being able to gain resources for programs because you can demonstrate they have a return/quantifiable result.

The end result is more efficient, more effective and more customer focused marketing.

Maybe it should be called customer marketing instead of data-driven marketing because the customer is the real winner.

Good Selling!

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