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Using data to drive strategy

Data-driven marketing is concerned with having a meaningful impact on the recipient.

Prakash Patel
By Prakash Patel, chief strategy officer, Fogg Experiential Design Cape Town.
Johannesburg, 05 Mar 2015

While a 'one-size-fits-all' marketing approach was acceptable in the past, today's customers are more demanding, informed and expectant. To stand out from the unprecedented noise of advertising, companies need to create authentic, relevant communications and consistent brand experiences to win their hearts and minds.

The best place to start is with data.

I'm talking about big data and small data, because for me, it's not the size of the data. It's what can be done with it; how it drives a company's strategy and, ultimately, its marketing.
Take a look at my five steps to creating a #DDM strategy framework.

1. Getting seriously strategic

Key to creating an overarching #DDM strategy is setting a company's vision, mapping out its data flow, creating a data strategy and establishing a technology strategy.

Start by collaborating with business heads and C-suite executives (CEO, COO, CTO, CMO, CFO, etc) to create the vision, because it needs to be led and owned by every touch-point in the business. Don't expect business-wide success if it is championed by one department.

Then map out the entire data-flow journey, including both customer and business perspectives, ensuring no opportunities are missed, and the company is able to implement any changes needed to meet the vision.

By using a data-flow journey, the company can track how data is collected, stored, processed, used, and shared (or not), which allows the company to create a holistic data strategy. Lastly, it's important to create a technology strategy, which necessitates the IT and marketing teams working together and enabling an overarching #DDM strategy.

2. Establish the foundation

Consumers utilise multiple devices, platforms and touch-points, generating billions of records, datasets, impressions, and CTAs, thus making it vital for IT and marketing teams to work together. Marketing simply cannot happen without technology!

A foundation based on these two departments' collaboration is another step towards achieving DDM, and I've listed several crucial considerations that should be taken into account when building this partnership.

Consider teamwork. A company needs to do DDM with technology and systems as its enabler, so don't let IT and marketing work in isolation.

Consider the company's current customer experience and ensure its processes and tools are in place from which to gather and collect data, interactions and impressions. This allows the company to create a consistent brand experience across multiple touch-points.

Consider not compromising the company's current customer experience. IT is only part of the solution and shouldn't limit marketing efforts.

Consider the data security of the company and ensure security measures are in place and data laws are met. Customers expect this and trust the company to protect their information.

3. Data insights

With oceans of data available from a variety of touch-points, it's unsurprising that data mining and interrogation unlocks key insights. But what are these indicative of and how can they be used?

I believe there are three significant levels related to how data is accumulated, stored and processed, and how it can be used for intelligent purposes.

The first level is based on building the foundation where data is stored and processed in order to establish a true, single view of the customer. Without this, the company's future activities in data-mining and interrogation could be misleading. Key checks here include building databases for marketing and IT purposes, and vetting how data is gathered, processed and cleaned.

The second level is based on data analysis and interrogation, because without data-mining, data-planning, modelling, and asking the right questions, the data is meaningless.

The third level is concerned with data visualisation and campaign management. Visualisation enables the company to bring its data to life so it is understood in a more meaningful manner, while campaign management allows the company to better plan and execute more sophisticated campaigns based on customer habits, preferences and behaviour.

4. Tactically targeted marketing

While the company might have the strategy, data, and buy-in from C-suites, it needs the right people, with the right mindset, to make the #DDM strategy a reality.

Don't let IT and marketing work in isolation.

Data statisticians, analysts, planners, and marketers are needed, who love data and are able to interrogate, question and use the tools to drive it. They have the passion and skills to intelligently ask questions like, "Why are people not converting once they have tested our product?" and "What is the true lifetime value of my customers?"

These people enable a company to perform targeted marketing, which is how it can drive more relevant and impactful communication to the most responsive selected audiences, at the most appropriate time, using the most relevant medium.

5. Effectively close the loop

The company is now almost positioned to put together a #DDM strategy. This requires analytical thinking, commitment, perseverance, patience, planning, learning and, more importantly, having a target in sight that is honed by processes and resources.

The following is my final thought about doing DDM:

After all the effort, cost, resource and management, the final step involves closing the loop. Unfortunately, in my experience, this step is commonly misinterpreted. Marketers frequently take their results as fact, and either repeat (for good results) or never repeat again (for bad results).

One of the biggest areas of marketing and DDM is the ability to look at data strategically and look at the results even more strategically. It's about understanding the data journey from "cradle to grave", looking at the learning and exploring a wide range of possibilities. It's not always as simple as "repeat" or "never repeat".

People's biggest failure is when they don't #learn, they don't #reapply, they don't #test, and they don't #review.

Regardless of whether or not the results are great, learning has to be the most important aspect in the workplace, so the company understands what worked and what didn't, and then tests and tries to always better its results with purpose and longevity.

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