The role of data in marketing decision-making to improve your marketing efforts

I’m guessing that this is going to be one of the least listened to episodes based on the topic. I’ve been in this business for over 9 years now and most people still don’t like numbers. Once upon a time I didn’t like numbers either, or rather, I thought I wasn’t good with numbers. Complex math gives me the shivers, but using numbers to inform me or to tell me a story is totally my thing. 

So when I say that business, funnels and ads are all math, I mean the storytelling type. I’m not asking you to do complex math, or if you do want to do that I’m not your girl. 

I like to look at data and decipher what it’s telling me. 

When you start marketing your business you’ll get certain responses on what you’re doing, at least I hope you do. For example, when you post on social media you’ll start seeing like and receive comments. Or when you send an email to your list you’ll be able to see the percentage of people who opened your email and how many clicked on a link. 

It’s this kind of data that you want to pay attention to.

So how can you use your data to make better marketing decisions?

Let's dive into this 🎧

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Transcript

Episode 141 - The role of data in marketing decision-making to improve your marketing efforts

Welcome back to the new school of marketing podcast. I’m so grateful to you for tuning in. Before we dive in I would love to pay respect and acknowledgement to the palawa people of lutruwita who are the traditional owners of the land on which my business operates and pay my respect to their elders, past, present and emerging.

Thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you’re having a great start of the week. We’re counting down the days until grandma visits. The kids are excited and looking forward to some family time. 

I’m guessing that this is going to be one of the least listened to episodes based on the topic. I’ve been in this business for over 9 years now and most people still don’t like numbers. Once upon a time I didn’t like numbers either, or rather, I thought I wasn’t good with numbers. Complex math gives me the shivers, but using numbers to inform me or to tell me a story is totally my thing. 

So when I say that business, funnels and ads are all math, I mean the storytelling type. I’m not asking you to do complex math, or if you do want to do that I’m not your girl. 

I like to look at data and decipher what it’s telling me. 

When you start marketing your business you’ll get certain responses on what you’re doing, at least I hope you do. For example, when you post on social media you’ll start seeing like and receive comments. Or when you send an email to your list you’ll be able to see the percentage of people who opened your email and how many clicked on a link. 

It’s this kind of data that you want to pay attention to.

So how can you use your data to make better marketing decisions?

Firstly, you need to pay attention to your data, and of course know which data to actually look at. So let’s dive into this a bit further.

Let’s look at your audience and what kind of information you’d want to be looking at. Keep in mind that you might not get all of this data from your existing systems and you might have to either survey your clients or do some more research. 

Data can help you understand the demographics of your audience. You can get to know more about age, gender, location and income levels. This information will help you create messages and copy that resonates as well as helping you decide how and where to target your audience.

Looking at your audience data can also help you work out how your audience behaves online, including what websites they visit, what content they engage with and their purchase behaviour. Knowing this type of data can help you create a solid marketing plan. 

If your audience isn’t one persona in particular, you can use data to segment your audience into smaller, more specific groups by looking at shared characteristics and behaviours. You can use segmentation to create personalised marketing campaigns for each group.

Your numbers can also help you figure out which messages and content resonates most with your audience so that you can create more of the same type of content. For example, you might get more responses and engagement from doing Instagram reels vs. putting up a static post. 

Or maybe Instagram isn’t the place for you, and your data will be able to show you this as well. You can use your stats to inform you where you should focus your time and effort. Use your data to work out which marketing channels are most effective in reaching your audience but also compare it to where your sales conversions are coming from.

Whenever you create content or any type of marketing activity it’s important to also set metrics and performance indicators against what you do, because otherwise you don't’ have any idea of what’s working. Start tracking your conversion rate, click-through rate, cost per acquisition, engagement rate and more.

Once you have some solid data in your spreadsheet (or whichever method you use to gather your data) you can start using your past data to somewhat predict your future. As long as you keep attracting similar customers you’ll be able to use predictive analysis to work out what to do. 

I know that some small businesses or solopreneurs don’t really have a marketing budget, but using data can help you set a budget as well as working out where to spend it. Look at what’s working and invest more in that marketing channel or activity. 

Knowing your numbers is so important because those numbers tell you what is and isn’t working so that you can make changes. Without this data you’ll be guessing or worrying about where your next client is going to come from. Start looking at your numbers and ask yourself ‘what is it telling me’? 

Data is the foundation of effective marketing decisions. It gives you the information you need to understand your audience, work on improving your campaigns, measure market performance and then make changes along the way. 

And if you’re still not sure about numbers…. Think of it as storytelling. The numbers tell the story of what’s happening in your business and where things are going well and where you can make improvements. 

Outro

Thanks for joining me on this episode of the New School of Marketing podcast, I hope this episode was helpful and I can’t wait to share more marketing tips with you next week. 

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level with Facebook and Instagram advertising, make sure you visit www.newschoolofmarketing.com to download practical free resources, plus subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you. Until next time, take care and market your business every day.