BPM Analytics
Marketing analytics – what it really means and how to get better at it
In the current times, data is all around us and every industry is using data to make decisions. Data by itself is of no use without analysis and application. All industries are increasingly relying on data to gain insights about organisation performance and market activity.
Data analytics is being increasingly used in the field of marketing analytics, where data is analysed to get insights into market transactions and trends. This analysis of data is aided by upcoming AI-assisted technologies where businesses can understand what drives market actions and refine their campaigns and optimise their returns.
Marketing analytics is not just the analysis of data patterns and using the results to make marketing decisions. It is a more nuanced area that has a lot of overlap with other areas of analytics like business, finance, sales, and so on. It is an important aspect of business that looks at identifying the right audience and devising the best ways to reach them.
Why should you use marketing analytics
Marketing analytics goes beyond marketing campaigns; it analyses current dynamic data based on past behaviour and the insights from the analysis are used to predict future market trends. Knowledge of future market trends is then used to drive production plans.
Marketing analytics enables brands to catch the attention of an ideal audience that consists of those who are most likely to be converted into customers. Here’s a quick overview of the main benefits of using marketing analytics.
- Possibility of course correction or changing marketing strategy. This is possible as when data analytics is applied to campaigns, it allows you to know which campaigns worked and why. You also come to know which campaign did not click and the reasons for failure. The application of marketing analytics enables elimination of guesswork from your strategy.
- Trend tracking for assessing marketing strategy. Market survey and market research help businesses forecast trends and plan future campaigns to suit upcoming needs.
- Assessment of ROI to assess various initiatives. Marketing analytics helps organisations get better ROI on their marketing budgets with better client experience. It enables tracking of the ROI to each of the marketing initiatives.
How to get better at marketing analytics
Marketing analytics is not just about getting the latest tool that can comb through vast data sets, it is about having a strategy, mindset, skills, and the right kind of technological tools.
Strategy
It is imperative to have a clear strategy on the types of data to be analysed, the questions the data needs to answer, and action to be taken with insights obtained from analysing the data. A clear strategy will ensure the use of the right tools and will result in useful analysis.
Mindset
Shifting team culture from a non-data driven mindset to a data-driven decision-making mindset is essential for an organisation to successfully use marketing analytics. This involves conscious effort to showcase instances of successful decisions based on data insights. A mindset change will be powerful and more readily accepted if the leadership team starts leading by example.
Upskilling
The marketing analytics team needs people with diverse and niche skill types such as data analysts, data visualizers, people who plan marketing strategies and many other skill sets. It is important that people with these diverse skills communicate seamlessly within the organisation. This might require every team member to have some basic upskilling to understand the basics of data analysis and some members to have niche skills to drive the overall effort.
Relevant data and suitable tools
For optimum results, teams must invest in the right kinds of analytical tools. Factors to be considered will range from where the data will be stored, the different platforms the data will be hosted on and the different types of software needed to analyse and visualise the data and other relevant considerations.
For deciding on data relevance, data sources will have to be chosen carefully. Sources could range from customer research data,
Google analytics data, internet search data (SEO) to any other relevant source.
Automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other emerging technologies are being leveraged to both mine and analyse data to ensure that both businesses and customers benefit. Teams involved in marketing analytics and strategy, to be in sync with the needs of contemporary markets, would serve their organisations best by keeping themselves informed of development on all these fronts.
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