Would it surprise you to learn that you are probably marketing your business the wrong way? Don’t worry, most people are. While this definitely applies to warnings about not participating in social media marketing, not having a blog, etc., the truth is that when we say you are probably doing marketing all wrong, we don’t mean that you aren’t using the right channels (though that may very well be an issue, too).
What we’re talking about is the approach you are taking to marketing and whether or not you are being smart about your marketing campaigns. How can you tell if you are marketing incorrectly? Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I know how to get my target audience to notice me?
- Do I know how to get a new audience to notice me?
- Do I even know who my target audience is?
- Have I tried lots of different types of online marketing and none of them have worked?
Small and large businesses alike deal with this issue. Digital marketing is a large and complex world and today’s consumer knows just about every marketing trick that companies try to push on them. They are extremely savvy and are tired of marketing tricks designed to dupe the consumer into buying something. They are looking for, instead, content that really resonates with their needs and desires.
How do you know first, who your audience is and second, what will resonate with them? Data driving marketing is the only way. It’s pointless, as a brand, to try to tell a consumer what they should buy. The internet is full of opinions, from other consumers, from professionals, from those paid to talk about products. The last opinion a consumer is going to trust is the one from the brand itself.
How does data driven marketing solve this problem? Data driven marketing requires brands to get to know their customers by collecting information about them and then analyzing that data. It tells the brands what their customers like to see and what they want to see. In short, it will tell a brand how to gain the attention of their target audience (and how their target audience is) and will reveal why consumers do or don’t take the actions that the brand wants them to take.
Data is one of the internet’s biggest pieces of currency and it is essential to the success of every company that wants to make it big online. There are essentially two types of data that brands will find useful. The first is data about your market and the second is data about your industry.
Market Data
Data about your market will tell you who your audience is, where they like to hang out on the internet (where they live, where they spend their time while online), what motivates them to buy something, what demotivates them to buy something, and how they like to engage with brands. All of this information is extremely valuable when it comes to trying to create a marketing campaign your customer will respond to.
Industry Data
Data about the industry will also help you build a marketing campaign that will allow you to stand out from the sea of other businesses offering something similar. This data will tell you who your direct competition is, what their offer comprises of and how it is different from yours, how you compare in the market to that competition, and what they are doing to engage their customers.
Why?
You may be able to collect a lot of this data through your own research. Google Analytics and tools like it are a good place to start when it comes to gathering data about consumers, but you then have to actually use that data, namely to determine who your customers are, what they care about, and how you can make your brand something that they care about.
Over the last three decades, marketing has had to go through an intense change, as more and more products have flooded the market and the internet has provided consumers much greater access to those products and to opinions about those products. The average consumer is literally bombarded with advertisements. Data driven marketing gives you the ability to know your customers intimately enough to break through the bombardment and offer them something they are likely to actually care about.
First of course, you have to know what they care about and where you can place an advertisement online so that your target audience is likely to see and respond to it. That’s what the data can tell you. It’s a leaner, more aggressive, and most cost-effective approach to digital marketing and is more likely to bring you success.
Would it surprise you to learn that you are probably marketing your business the wrong way? Don’t worry, most people are. While this definitely applies to warnings about not participating in social media marketing, not having a blog, etc., the truth is that when we say you are probably doing marketing all wrong, we don’t mean that you aren’t using the right channels (though that may very well be an issue, too).
What we’re talking about is the approach you are taking to marketing and whether or not you are being smart about your marketing campaigns. How can you tell if you are marketing incorrectly? Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I know how to get my target audience to notice me?
- Do I know how to get a new audience to notice me?
- Do I even know who my target audience is?
- Have I tried lots of different types of online marketing and none of them have worked?
Small and large businesses alike deal with this issue. Digital marketing is a large and complex world and today’s consumer knows just about every marketing trick that companies try to push on them. They are extremely savvy and are tired of marketing tricks designed to dupe the consumer into buying something. They are looking for, instead, content that really resonates with their needs and desires.
How do you know first, who your audience is and second, what will resonate with them? Data driving marketing is the only way. It’s pointless, as a brand, to try to tell a consumer what they should buy. The internet is full of opinions, from other consumers, from professionals, from those paid to talk about products. The last opinion a consumer is going to trust is the one from the brand itself.
How does data driven marketing solve this problem? Data driven marketing requires brands to get to know their customers by collecting information about them and then analyzing that data. It tells the brands what their customers like to see and what they want to see. In short, it will tell a brand how to gain the attention of their target audience (and how their target audience is) and will reveal why consumers do or don’t take the actions that the brand wants them to take.
Data is one of the internet’s biggest pieces of currency and it is essential to the success of every company that wants to make it big online. There are essentially two types of data that brands will find useful. The first is data about your market and the second is data about your industry.
Market Data
Data about your market will tell you who your audience is, where they like to hang out on the internet (where they live, where they spend their time while online), what motivates them to buy something, what demotivates them to buy something, and how they like to engage with brands. All of this information is extremely valuable when it comes to trying to create a marketing campaign your customer will respond to.
Industry Data
Data about the industry will also help you build a marketing campaign that will allow you to stand out from the sea of other businesses offering something similar. This data will tell you who your direct competition is, what their offer comprises of and how it is different from yours, how you compare in the market to that competition, and what they are doing to engage their customers.
Why?
You may be able to collect a lot of this data through your own research. Google Analytics and tools like it are a good place to start when it comes to gathering data about consumers, but you then have to actually use that data, namely to determine who your customers are, what they care about, and how you can make your brand something that they care about.
Over the last three decades, marketing has had to go through an intense change, as more and more products have flooded the market and the internet has provided consumers much greater access to those products and to opinions about those products. The average consumer is literally bombarded with advertisements. Data driven marketing gives you the ability to know your customers intimately enough to break through the bombardment and offer them something they are likely to actually care about.
First of course, you have to know what they care about and where you can place an advertisement online so that your target audience is likely to see and respond to it. That’s what the data can tell you. It’s a leaner, more aggressive, and most cost-effective approach to digital marketing and is more likely to bring you success.