Establishing a data-driven marketing strategy is no easy feat. It takes the right tools and technology to be able to track users across all of your properties. And then once that’s in place, it takes critical analysis to understand customer behaviors that lead to real insights.
- How do customers find your site or app?
- Once there, what do they typically do?
- Where are the key places that drive abandonment?
- What are the top reasons or benefits that ultimately led to a sale?
- What does A/B testing show about the language we use to market our products?
- Once the sale is complete, are customers engaged and regularly using the product?
- What frustrations do your customers have?
- What would it take for loyal customers to tell their friends about your product or write a stellar review?
All of these questions and more are easily answered with the right tracking and analysis plan in place.
This is how we help clients put data-driven marketing plans in place.
Here’s how we do it
- Track every click and action
It starts with a plan to track every piece of your customer journey.
There are thousands of analytics solutions to choose from. The key is to work with the tools you’re already using, identify what you can and can’t track, and then build a plan from there.
I’ve worked with the smartest marketing and agency teams on the planet. But the secret to effective marketing campaigns is really no secret at all – spend more time analyzing data than writing emails and Facebook posts. That’s where the insights come from that lead to your next great marketing campaign.
- Optimize, optimize, optimize
Too many businesses want to jump into the next campaign before nailing the basics of your existing sales funnel. Before we brainstorm new campaigns, let’s run several dozen experiments on your existing website content.
We help clients with disciplined approach to test-and-learn.
We’ll test
- Headlines
- Feature and benefit copy
- Education and supporting language
- Images
- The conversion funnel
One test I ran at USAA improved the product landing page conversion rate by 24%. That resulted in millions in additional downstream revenue.
Once you understand the needs and wants of the different segments within your audience, and you’ve fully optimized your entire funnel, you’re on your way to significant growth in conversion.
- Test existing traffic drivers
Once we’ve optimized the conversion rates on your site, then it’s time to start driving more traffic.
Let’s test what works with your prospect emails, engagement emails, support emails, and product education emails. Growing email click rates from 10% to 20% can mean millions in additional revenue.
Did you know that Amazon drives nearly $1 billion in sales from its ‘package on the way’ emails?
This is an email that simply says your order has been shipped. But the clever marketers at Amazon saw how valuable those emails were, and they launched a series of tests to see if they could be used to drive sales.
It took several months of playing with the right designs to not feel too sales-y. But once they figured it out, this is now a billion-dollar automated sales engine that runs with minimal human oversight.
The key is to find the traffic drivers you already have and experiment on how to retain the value that customers see, while identifying new ways to drive awareness and new purchases.
- Measure and repeat (through accountability)
Any successful marketing organization didn’t get there overnight. They did it through constant learning, analysis, and experimentation.
Not everything is going to work. So we have to dig into why that campaign or tactic worked. Was it more successful with certain segments than others?
It takes a commitment to tracking and understanding your marketing data. But once you have the data in place, you can empower your teams to drive continuous improvement.
Let’s say you have a marketer who owns a product landing page. Once you know the baseline metrics for the effectiveness of traffic drivers and the conversion rate – it now becomes their full-time job to grow both of those key metrics through a disciplined approach to experimentation.
I’m not trying to make it sound easy. It’s not. But I’d love to share my learnings with you to help craft a data-driven marketing plan for your business.
So, how can we help you with your content strategy?
- Have you executed A/B testing to optimize your customer funnel?
- Are you reaching customers on third-party sites where they are researching you and your competitors?
- How can content help improve your traffic and search results?
- Do you have a plan to double down on the tactics and channels that work and stop wasting time on those that don’t?
We’d love to brainstorm with you to create a disciplined approach to data-driven marketing. So get in touch, let’s chat.
