Data is a powerful way to guide your strategy. It is your map to sales. It gives you hints and clues as to what does not work, and what does work. With testing and measuring, data broadens possibilities and the way to your customers.
As with anything, there is always something that gives us guidance. Consider data, your guide.
“Nearly ⅔ of leading organizations say that their executive treat data-driven insights as more valuable than gut instinct” Econsultancy and Google.
Being able to gather data from different sources, measuring different aspects of a truth, is the best way to gain the most knowledgeable data. This is why digital marketing is so powerful. Digital marketing allows you to gather data across all channels. You can see exactly where your conversions and sales are coming from. This includes social, direct, paid, organic, and referral.
How to convert data into sales:
- Measure: Make sure you are asking the right questions while measuring your data. Analyze it to increase conversions. Test different strategies and budgeting so you can ask yourself “What worked this time that we didn’t do last time?”, “How can we increase the conversions?”, “What is working and what is wasting money?”
- Organize: Organize your data. Having endless amount of data, without organizing serves you no good. Discover the most valuable segments of your business, and see how the consumers in that segment behave. With the right organization, and conclusions for different segments, you will be able to personalize messages. This is incredibly important for potential lifetime value. Know your customer segments, and follow them on their journey of life.
- Design: Consider your different audience segments. Design a user experience that gets more powerful as consumers become regularly engaged with your website. A loyal consumer that visits every month, should be able to receive more from your business, and more offers/promotions. Keep your loyal consumers, as they are a huge asset to your business.
- Reach: How do you reach the right person, at the right time, with the right message? Google says that with real-time data you can truly reach the right people at the right time with the right message. As you see your audience behaving differently, you should constantly be optimizing and adjusting your customer experience for a greater reach.
“Nearly 7 in 10 leading marketers say that their companies use data to support decision-making at all levels” Google.
Trust your gut, but trust numbers first:
When you are constantly around data, your gut will probably be right. If you are not constantly staying updated with new trends and new consumer behaviors, then don’t trust your gut. Don’t get me wrong, your gut is still important, but make sure that you are educating your gut, in order to make educated choices.
Train Train Train to Analyze:
“Leading marketers are more than twice as likely as the mainstream to say that they routinely take action based on insights and recommendations from analytics” Econsultancy and Google.
3 out of 4 marketers agree that the one barrier is that their team is not educated and trained enough to accurately implement data analysis into new practices to leverage more sales. Without understanding data, you cannot implement it. Train yourself to transform your business.
You will first need to decide that you trust data, and that data does not lie. Then from that, you can truly decide to transform your business based on data.
Take Risks:
“Leaders are 55% more likely to say that their marketing organizations are comfortable with risks” Econsultancy and Google.
The tricky part about implementing data into your marketing and sales strategy is taking the first step. If you haven’t done it, then it might be scary to get out of your comfort zone. Today’s digital world is changing every day. Google optimizes and improves everything, which is why they are so successful. They know what people want, and they use data to better serve their consumers.
Take charge of your business, and really dive into your data. Your data has clues and hints as to why you should do next. Stop trusting what you have done for the past years, and start trusting what the numbers say.
Data is the key to sales. It doesn’t lie, so listen to it.
Your Next Steps:
Integrating data into your business is the best thing you can do for your sales. You are essentially eliminating costs that generate no conversion and finding the best ways to reach and serve your consumers. To get started make sure you have a cross-channel tracking system set in place in order to track all of your data.
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