The Found Gen

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The Role of Data in Building a Successful Marketing Strategy: How to Use Analytics to Your Advantage

Data makes the world go round. Without it, your marketing strategy is, well, not a strategy at all. It’s more of a “throw things on the wall and see what sticks” kind of approach. Seeing what sticks is not a sustainable way to build your business. 

If you want to develop a successful marketing program, you need data. There’s just no way around it. The good thing is that data doesn’t have to be scary, and you don’t have to be a “numbers person” to understand what it means. Data is for everyone, and everyone needs data if they want to build a marketing strategy that truly delivers results. 

Understanding the Power of Data in Marketing

Data has never been more accessible. You no longer have to guess what your audience wants; you can knowby looking at what your data tells you about customer behaviors, preferences and trends. This not only allows you to target your messaging to match your readers’ interests, but it also eliminates wasted spending by directing resources toward strategies that yield measurable results.

How to Identify Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Not all data is created equally. To make data work for you, you need to determine which metrics matter most for your business. The KPIs you choose to track will be tailored to your goals, but below are several general metrics many marketing pros find helpful:

  • Website traffic – How many people are visiting your site? Where are they coming from, and which pages are they landing on?
  • Conversion rates – How many of these visitors are turning into leads or customers?
  • Engagement metrics – How are people interacting with your content? How much time are they spending on your site?
  • Cost per lead (CPL) – How much are you spending to acquire a new customer? On the whole, you want to keep your CPL low. That means a lot of leads for not a lot of money.

By tracking these and other KPIs, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.

Data-Driven Decision-Making

One of the biggest advantages of marketing analytics is the ability to make informed decisions. Instead of relying on gut feelings, data allows you to identify which channels are driving the most engagement and adjust content strategies based on audience behavior. Data also gives you quick answers when testing different approaches – for example, when running an A/B test on your newsletter.

By continuously analyzing data and adjusting your strategy, you can ensure your marketing efforts align with what actually works. If you need help interpreting your data or are unsure whether what you’re doing is working, give us a call at The Found Gen. We can take a fresh look at your data and help you develop an effective marketing strategy going forward. 

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Don’t Get Data Obsessed – Learning to Use Your Data Responsibly

Data has never been more accessible, and the pressure to obsess over that data has never been stronger either. Every click, view and interaction can be tracked, analyzed, and sliced and diced any which way to tell a story. But the frenetic energy surrounding data can also lead to some major pitfalls. While data is an essential tool for making informed business decisions, relying too heavily on numbers without context can lead to misguided strategies and missed opportunities.

The Danger of Data Obsession

Many businesses fall into the trap of letting numbers dictate every move. They chase metrics without understanding what they truly mean. The truth is data is not the end-all-be-all driver to a successful marketing campaign. There’s always more to the story. If you overemphasize data, it can lead to issues such as:

  • Analysis paralysis – Too much data can be overwhelming and lead to hesitation and indecision rather than action.
  • Ignoring human insight – Data tells a story, but it’s people who provide context. Relying solely on numbers may cause you to overlook customer curiosity, creative instincts and industry trends.
  • Short-term thinking – Fixating on quick wins, such as immediate spikes in traffic or conversions, can blind you to long-term growth strategies. Because many marketing strategies are about the long game, you can’t always tell if it’s working if you zero in on short-term metrics. 

Using Data Responsibly

Instead of chasing numbers for the sake of it, use your data responsibly. One way to do this is by balancing data with context. Your data should inform decisions, not purely be a reaction to them. When you’re reacting, the result is a content strategy based on the past, not on what your audience is likely to do in the future. It also fails to tell you the most important information – why someone chose to interact with your content.

Thinking about the reasons your customers engage with you can help you better understand their motivations, and this will help you decide what you should be sharing, when and how frequently. 

Define Meaningful Metrics

Another way to use data responsibly is to focus on the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that truly align with your business goals. Ignore the fluff and vanity metrics. Here are some we recommend looking closely at:

  • Impressions
  • Email Engagement
  • Spend
  • Clicks
  • Social Media Engagement
  • Web Page Views
  • Sales (unit/dollar volume)
  • Cost per Client
  • Cost per Lead
  • Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS)
  • Return on Investment (ROI)

With any growth strategy, it’s important to remember that sustainable success isn’t built on one-time spikes in traffic or engagement. Balance long-term data trends with customer insight and behavior patterns to develop an effective marketing strategy for your business. We’re here to pinch hit.  Call us at The Found Gen today for help with your data analysis and marketing strategy.

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Stop Relying So Heavily on Data for Marketing

Data sets are great – they make you feel invincible, right? You have all this knowledge at your fingertips – and knowledge is power, after all. Pretty sure Machiavelli said something of the sort…or Russel Crowe.

For those of you who are data-fanatics, what we’re about to say may not jive with you at first. That’s okay. Just do us a favor and let it simmer for just a bit. Alright, you ready?

Here it goes: Data is not the end-all-be-all driver to a successful marketing campaign.  

No, of course we’re not saying that data isn’t useful, or that you should forego it altogether. We’re not masochists. But, we are telling you that focusing KPIs alone does not generate a robust marketing campaign.

So Much Data, So Little Impact

The ability to access data and analytics is at an all-time high. With fresh CRMs dropping daily and cool new apps to track all sorts of KPIs coming out faster than you can read this article, it’s almost impossible to avoid the data hype. Unfortunately, this can all too often create an addiction-like response to tracking these numbers. Tailoring your marketing plan and your content to only what the data sets tell you means that you’re reacting rather than acting. The result is a content strategy based on the past, not on what your audience is likely to do in the future. It also fails to tell you the most important information – why someone chose to interact with your content.

Thinking about the reasons your customers engage with you can help you better understand their motivations. Focusing on your customers’ motivations is the best way to decide what information you should be sharing, when, and how frequently. The goal is to share insightful, informative and engaging content that engages your customers on their level – based on their wants and needs, rather than your metrics.

Creative Leap of Faith

Ultimately, marketing should be driven by the value you provide your consumers or clients. Leveraging creativity to deliver distinctive and in-demand content does require taking some risks. Tap into pop culture, sentiments, and trends to create something unique that represents your brand. And guess what? Studies have shown that companies that focus on creativity first generate roughly ten percent higher revenue. So, even the data supports focusing on the creative!

We’re not saying you should ignore the data. What we’re aiming for is balance. Sometimes, that means working with a marketing firm that enjoys a good data set but also wants to really get into the work of the behavior and mindsets both of your business as well as your consumers. It’s understanding your audience that leads to the most creative, engaging, and results-driven marketing strategies.  

Too much reliance on data can detract from your brand identity and your overall mission. We’ve seen too many businesses get bogged down in the data and lose sight their original goals as a result. You don’t want that – we don’t want that for you!

We can help you curate content that builds on your brand and bolsters your engagement metrics too. We’ll still get you the data you crave, but you’ll know more about the best ways to use it!

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Which Data Points Are Worth Tracking and Which Are Not?

We hear it all the time from businesses embarking on their social media marketing journey, “how can we get more followers?” And while large follower counts might look impressive, they’re all but irrelevant if they’re the wrong audience or not engaged. It can be easy to get lost in the appearance of big numbers, but what really matters is data that tracks your impact with impressions, clicks and click-through rates

There’s a ton of KPIs out there, but here’s the ones we recommend looking closely at:

  • Impressions
  • Email Engagement
  • Spend
  • Clicks
  • Social Media Engagement
  • Webpage Views
  • Sales (unit/dollar volume)
  • Cost per Client
  • Cost per Lead
  • Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS)
  • Return on Investment (ROI)

Analyzing these metrics will tell you how successful your strategy is, and they’ll help you craft even better content for even better results. They can help you understand your traffic performance, readership engagement, and lead generation.  After all, the more you know, the better you can target and reach the people that really matter to your business needs.

Despite how overwhelming it can feel to track, manage, and interpret, data can guide some pretty big and important decisions when it comes to who you target, how you target them, and the most effective ways to continue to engage them.

If you’re ready, we can help ensure that your metrics and marketing stay perfectly aligned for growing your business. Take the next step today by getting in touch with us at The Found Gen.

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Can Too Much Data Analysis Hinder Your Marketing Strategy?

Data analysis is the living heartbeat of a smart digital marketing campaign. If you’re sending out a bunch of content without measuring its effects, you’re going to be missing out on A LOT of important insights. Analytics can help you understand your traffic performance, readership engagement, and lead generation. 

So, with that being said, what data should you actually be tracking in your digital marketing campaign?

It’s not uncommon for businesses to opt to view success through their amount of followers on social media, website clicks, and other metrics. However, those metrics only paint half the picture.

At the end of the day, the success of your marketing campaign isn’t whether you get more followers on social media or more traffic to your website. A smart digital marketing campaign drives leads that convert into clients. 

For us, the most important two metrics are your cost-per-lead and your cost-per-client (aka Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC). If you are seeing your cost-per-lead and your cost-per-client go down, your marketing is working. 

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t check your engagement rate based on time of day and type of post, nor to say tracking the change month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter, and year-over-year isn’t worth your time. It absolutely is. We look for seasonal swings that can inform our strategy to drive more quality traffic to you and build better relationships with human beings.

But if those improvements in your engagement rate on social (or reducing your bounce rate on your website) don’t improve your cost-per-lead or your cost-per-client, something isn’t working properly. 

Why we say this: it’s easy to manipulate the data – you can post something controversial on social and see engagement skyrocket or stuff links into your highest trafficked pages to see your bounce rate go down. But if it doesn’t lead to more revenue, you’re still at the same point you were before the change. 

In short: you want to focus on the right data instead of spending time on the fluff. Analyzing the right data will tell you how successful your strategy is, and they’ll help you craft even better content for even better results. Learning how to analyze marketing data is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of running a successful marketing campaign.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by data analysis, give us a call  – we’ll take a look at your data at no cost and let you know what we think.

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What Data Should You Be Looking at When Analyzing Your Marketing

If you’re sending out a bunch of content without measuring its effects, you’re going to be missing out on A LOT of important insights. For a successful marketing strategy, you need to know what’s hitting the target, what’s missing, and why. Metrics will tell you how successful your strategy is, and they’ll help you craft even better content for even better results. Learning how to analyze marketing data is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of running a successful marketing campaign.

Analytics can help you track your impact with impressions, clicks and click-through rates. They can help you understand your traffic performance, readership engagement, and lead generation. So, with all that being said, what data should you be tracking? There’s a ton of KPIs out there, but here’s the ones we recommend looking closely at:

  • Impressions
  • Email Engagement
  • Spend
  • Clicks
  • Social Media Engagement
  • Webpage Views
  • Sales (unit/dollar volume)
  • Cost per Client
  • Cost per Lead
  • Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS)
  • Return on Investment (ROI)

There isn’t a right answer for which tool is best to measure or track your analytics – the reality is just stick with one. Much akin to tracking your weight loss on a scale – you want to use the same measuring tool if you are going to accurately track the data. Switching scales can affect your numbers and result in a lot of frustration. The same rule applies to tracking your marketing data. 

Here are some of the tools that are available: 

  • Google Analytics
  • Tableau
  • Momently
  • HubSpot Marketing Hub
  • SEMrush
  • Google Search Console
  • Visitor Analytics
  • Clicky Analytics
  • Bitly

We know sifting through data can be a drag – if the numbers get too overwhelming, we can help!