Data-driven MarTech
It’s no secret that the marketing technology landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. In this evolving environment, marketers need to be able to adapt and make sure they have the right tools to drive growth. A data-driven approach can help marketers achieve that goal. But how do you build a data-driven marketing technology stack?
What is data-driven marketing?
Data-driven marketing is the practice of measuring and optimizing customer journeys and digital marketing campaigns using data. Data-driven marketing can be used to help you understand your customers better so that you can create more relevant messages that resonate with them—and ultimately drive sales growth.
How can you use data in marketing to improve customer experience and increase revenue?
You can use data to personalize the customer experience.
The key to personalization is understanding what drives each individual customer’s buying process. When you know what motivates your customers (and how they want to be communicated with), you can provide content that supports their needs and helps them make decisions about purchasing your product or service.
By understanding why people are interested in certain things at different stages of their journey, you can reach them where they are without overwhelming them with irrelevant information or pushing them down paths they aren’t ready for yet (i.e., cross-selling).
This will ultimately improve conversion rates as well as retention rates because customers feel like they’re being listened to rather than being talked at all times,
Which marketing tools do you need for data-driven marketing?
The following marketing tools are critical to a data-driven marketing stack. It’s important to note that these technologies are used in tandem with one another:
Marketing Automation (MAP)
Marketing Automation is a system that allows you to automate your marketing processes and create a personalized customer experience. The technology enables you to gather data and analyze it, so that you can better understand your customers’ behavior. You can then use this information to create campaigns that are relevant to them.
Marketing automation also helps with lead generation by tracking the customer’s journey through your website or store, and sending them offers at key points in their journey (such as when they are likely to churn) . It tracks which offers are most effective at increasing conversions, so that you know what types of offers will be most likely to convert in the future!
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is a tool used to manage your customers. CRM helps you keep track of the information about your customers and what they’re doing in order to be able to better serve them. This could include things like their interests, purchasing history and other data that may help you provide more relevant messaging or services.
Typically sales teams use a CRM system to manage and follow-up on their customers. Data from marketing automation platform can be pushed to a CRM system so it is available to all teams.
Content Management System (CMS)
A content management system (CMS) is a platform that allows you to manage the content of your website or blog. It’s made up of two main parts: a user interface (UI), which allows users to edit and publish content; and the database, which stores all of your website’s information. All together, these work together in tandem to create dynamic websites that can be modified without any coding knowledge required.
There are many different types of CMSs out there—some are open source while others are not—but most allow users to create and manage their own websites with ease. The most common ones are WordPress and Joomla! because they’re free and have many features available as extensions or plugins that help users build more advanced websites.
Customer Data Platform (CDP)
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a single, unified repository for all of your customer data. It’s the foundation for any successful marketing technology stack because it serves as the central hub where you can store, manage and analyze your customer data.
A Customer Data Platform is like your front door to the world of customer data. It’s where you can connect all those different sources, organize them into one central place, and use them to make better decisions about how to market to your customers or prospects in the future.
The idea behind CDPs is that they allow you to collect all of your customers’ information into one place so that it can be organized, analyzed and utilized effectively in real-time by your marketing team. This means that when a customer calls or fills out a form on your website, their information will be stored directly in the CDP instead of being sent through multiple systems where it could get lost or duplicated along the way. A CDP creates a single source of truth for all customer data.
Data Warehouse or Data Lake
A data warehouse is a data repository for processed data. It pulls in all the raw information from your various sources and organizes it into usable formats so that you can track trends over time, run reports against specific datasets and more.
A data lake is a storage repository for raw data. It can be used as a single source of truth to bring together all your company’s disparate data sets into one place, where they can be analyzed and processed.
Dashboarding and Data Visualization tools
Dashboards provide a snapshot of business performance in one place, while data visualization helps you understand and communicate complex business processes, gain insight into customer behavior, and make better decisions. Data visualization tools can help you create interactive visualizations that tell stories. They offer an alternative to traditional reporting— instead of focusing on numbers alone or raw charts, data visualizations show actionable insights through images that allow users to explore their data visually rather than reading it from a spreadsheet or table.
Both, performance reporting and data visualization, are equally important to benefit from data-driven marketing and increase marketing effectiveness.
Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence tools
Using advanced analytics and/or AI software can be used to efficiently analyze customer data and enrich existing data sets with new variables that can be used for automated campaigns and personalization of touch points.
Conclusion
A data-driven marketing technology stack can help you improve your customer experience, identify key areas for growth and create new opportunities. A good first step for data-driven marketing is making sure you have the right tools in place and ensure you create a single source of truth that can be used across channels and touch points to create a consistent and personalized customer experience.
