The validity and potential of marketing hasn’t changed, in spite of the impact that Covid has had on the customer base, so why are we still failing to leverage it? Many of the businesses that continue to enjoy success and growth are those that have defended their marketing investment, emphasizing its image internally and externally. By pursuing data-driven strategies, these companies have adapted to the digital-first world and protected themselves from black swan events. How then, can we replicate this?

What is Data-Driven Marketing?

When a company employs a data-driven approach, it means that it is making strategic decisions based on data analysis and interpretation. Over the past 20 years, many brands and divisions have been pursuing this opportunity; for marketing though, the process has been slow going.

In light of current circumstances however, it’s not difficult to understand why we might need our marketing teams to be data-driven. Data helps decision-makers to navigate their environment with confidence whilst also positioning their business for growth. This is something that few will want to pass on. We need to take advantage of the latent opportunity in big data, digital marketing, and performance analytics and we can only do so when we are data-driven.

Data is unemotional and empirical. As such, it gives decision-makers and their businesses the confidence to navigate crises in real-time, with objective information. Take the unparalleled success of Amazon throughout the pandemic. A business which bases its entire model on customer data – Amazon uses past purchases, shopping carts, reviews, rankings, and repeat buys to influence purchase decisions on a one-to-one basis. Ergo, their approach is defined by the information they receive from the customer.

Amazon has access to hundreds of millions of customer accounts, and billions of data points, but the principle of data-driven marketing doesn’t demand volume. All you need is a calculable, quantifiable base from which you can build a strategy for targeting, and boost visibility accordingly.

Whilst 64% of executives strongly agree that data-driven marketing is crucial to success in the competitive global economy, 87% still see data as their organization’s most underutilized asset. The value in data is unquestionable, and in line with this, we must establish and consistently affirm the value of data so that all staff understand its importance.

How Do Data & Analytics Drive Visibility into Marketing Effectiveness?

The concept of visibility will naturally mean different things to different organizations. For some, it may mean staying front-of-mind for customers. For others, it will consist of protecting marketing budgets by showcasing success to stakeholders and decision-makers.

But here are the 5 ways in which visibility, in all its forms, drives effectiveness:

• It supports targeting, allowing you to reach the right people at the right time. With data showing who is interested in your products and when, you optimize your conversion and ROI.
• It streamlines processes, by allowing you to map and automate systems based on recorded data. The more data you input, the more you can iterate and improve.
• It highlights potential, showing you untapped markets, geographies, or demographics where your future customers (or competitor’s customers) are.
• It fuels planning, by offering rapid visualizations of what works and what doesn’t. If you have data on behavioral trends, it can also predict and project.
• It communicates value, by showing the ROI of the marketing team internally and winning business cases for investment, funding, or greater project responsibility.

To learn more, download the full report here or continue the debate at the CMO Brand Insight Summit, a GDS Summit, where we bring together senior supply chain executives who are actively seeking to share, learn, engage, and find the best technology solutions.

GDS Group hosts experts to help experts. We strive to provide an atmosphere for our attendees that enables them to confidently lead their companies through major transformation projects. For information on upcoming events, view our view our Digital Summits. To remain current on our activities, visit GDS Group on LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter.