The idea of using data for a competitive advantage has been around for a while. The difference these days is that even small businesses can now access vast quantities of customer data. That creates a lot of opportunities for your business.
Why is data-driven marketing important?
One of the best opportunities for small businesses lies in data-driven marketing. In a nutshell, that’s using all that juicy data you collect to craft and target more effective marketing. When done well, it can help you meet or exceed your marketing goals.
If you’re interested in leveraging data-driven marketing, keep reading for some tips on where and how it can help your business.
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Targeting Your Market
On some level, all digital marketing relies on data. Unfortunately, it’s often unrefined data. For example, anyone who visits your website is theoretically interested in your products or services.
Let’s say you run a law firm that specializes in tax law in the Denver area. If you primarily work with SMBs, you’re not looking for clients who want estate planning.
The problem is that anyone searching for tax lawyers in Denver can potentially end up on your site. Let’s say you see a high percentage of visitors who won’t make good clients. You can use that data as the basis for a law firm PPC strategy that targets small businesses specifically.
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Segmentation
Even inside your ideal target market, not every person or business holds the same potential value. Even a carefully crafted lead generation process can give you a substantial number of bit fits, such as people who aren’t really in the market right now.
It gets even trickier when you deploy digital marketing strategies that attract a lot of attention. You can use all of that data you collect to segment leads or customers into lists, such as warm/cold leads or high-value customers and low-value customers.
Once you create those lists, you direct more marketing or even personalized marketing toward the more valuable lists.
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Content Development
A big part of your search engine ranking for pages depends on you providing content that your customers care about. You can potentially outsource some of that work to a digital marketing agency or freelancers, but you have the data. You can see which pieces of content your customers spend the most time on.
That gives you the best chance of crafting more content they’ll like. You can even take it one more step and offer personalized experiences on your site based on individual customer data.
Data-Driven Marketing and You
Data-driven marketing can help you achieve your marketing goals. It gives the information you need to target your market more effectively, segment your customers, and even build more effective content.
The flip side of this equation is you must invest in the software and IT infrastructure that allows you to make sense of the data you collect on your customers. Without those resources in place, you’ll struggle with using that data.
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