Somewhat surprisingly, despite all the buzz about Big Data, only 32 percent of marketers are pursuing a data-first strategy. And, more tellingly, even the B2B marketers who might want to pursue such a strategy rarely feel confident doing so: less than 50 percent of marketers feel prepared for the data-driven future of marketing.
So here are three quick tips on using data for better B2B marketing campaigns.
Tip #1: Make sure you’re getting the right data
This might seem obvious, until the you consider the difference between data that’s easy to collect, and the data that actually makes an impact on the future of your business. In some cases, they are not always one and the same.
As anyone who’s ever taken a basic course on statistics knows, bad data leads to bad results. Therefore, it’s critical to assess the quality of data that you’re collecting. Take leads, for example. How accurate is the data that you’re collecting for each and every lead? Are the people who are supposed to be adding the data doing so properly?
Tip #2: Capture data from the entire customer lifecycle
Most companies try to capture data at the beginning of the customer lifecycle – the point where they are excited about the new “customer win.” But it gets progressively harder to collect data throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Yet, it’s exactly at this time that data can be so important. You can help to capture this data using a vendor solution like JumpLead, which helps to convert website visitors into leads, and then nurture them into customers.
We already know that 71 percent of B2B customers are ready to jump to the next vendor at a moment’s notice. So, the more data that you have on a customer, the more able you are to predict their moves. And, more importantly, the more likely you are to pinpoint what needs to change in your offer and messaging to make this customer stay. In a best-case scenario, you will be able to cross-sell and up-sell this customer for years to come.
Tip #3: Analyze the data with the right metrics
The choice of which metrics you use to analyze the difference can make all the difference. For example, if you’re only looking at “counting” statistics – such as the number of leads you brought in last month, or the number of sales closed over the past quarter – you may be missing out on other metrics that give you a more nuanced view of how your organization is managing the customer relationship.
Again, let’s consider the category of B2B leads. There are various metrics that can be employed here, such as the number of overall leads. But a more accurate metric, at least from a sales perspective, is the number of qualified or “hot” leads. And, further still, it might be possible to create metrics that pinpoint which parts of the customer experience are the weakest in terms of generating a final sale. For example, if you find out that a significant proportion of leads disappear after reaching the “evaluation” stage of the customer experience, that’s some pretty valuable information for people creating the demos, test-drives and product manuals.
At the end of the day, getting the right data and then analyzing this data with the right metrics and tools can make all the difference in what your organization’s stop executives see when they open up the latest marketing report.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.