3 Reasons Why Data and Marketing Are a Match Made in Heaven

While raw data can be reams of numbers, when you interrogate it, what you get is an insightful snapshot of your business full of useful information. When you combine the intelligence from data with the communication touchpoints created by marketing, the result can catapult your brand to new heights of excellence in customer experience delivery.

Here are three reasons why you should match data to marketing in everything you do.

You may be the best brand in the world selling the greatest product since sliced bread, but without customers, you’re nothing. And while you may win an audience over because they have a need for what you do, if you don’t listen to these buyers and their wants and needs evolve, as soon as they’ve got what they want from you, you’ll not see them again.

Data mining marketing uses behavioral data to listen to the market and hear what it’s saying, like a form of market research. It then uses marketing tools to tell your prospects how you can fulfill their requirements. And the more people interact with your brand, the better you can create products and services that they will go on needing time and again.

It’s hard to deny that when you are served highly relevant content promoting products and services that are exactly what you need when you haven’t even run a search for them, it’s pretty cool no matter how many times it happens to you or how unnerving it may feel. And, more importantly, it’s useful. But how does it work?

Through big data, savvy businesses have learned that human beings are rather unremarkable in how they go about doing things. Purchasing behaviors and buying journeys are similar for vast sub-sets of the population, which means brands can quite accurately predict how someone is going to behave based on how “people like them” have acted in the past.

Not only does this make every piece of content your customers see work much harder because it is tailored to them but it also means your marketing can do less to achieve more - they won’t need to do as much activity to land the right messages with the right audience.

What is it that makes a good comedian so funny? It’s because what they say is so relatable that the audience immediately feels a “That’s so true!” camaraderie with both the comedian and each other. The same can be said for how data influences the marketing function’s ability to tell a story.

While you’re unlikely to find yourself belly-laughing at the majority of a brand’s messaging, undoubtedly you have had an experience where you’ve watched a television advert or seen a digital display campaign and thought, “Wow, that’s me. That’s my life.” It isn’t a coincidence; this is the magic of data-driven marketing.

How does a brand know how to talk to you about their products? The data. The information it yields tells a business all about you, so they know exactly how to communicate to help you envisage yourself not only using but loving their products or services.

Data truly is the jewel in a marketing team’s crown. When used smartly, it elevates everything marketing does, from knowing who to talk to, when, how, with what message and through which means. Don’t be left behind: use data to make every customer interaction more powerful than the last.