The value that businesses, especially marketers, are attributing to data and analytics is exploding. It’s not new, and is certainly not seen as sexy (although I would tend to disagree) but is becoming central to every decision and action taken by data driven organisations, large or small.
So, with so much importance on data, what do you do when you fundamentally can’t trust your data?
“We have loads of data but we are not data driven”
This is now a very common phrase we hear across all of our clients. Brands are swimming in data, and let’s be honest, consumers are not holding back sharing data, so what’s the problem?
From my perspective, there are five key issues a business must overcome:
1. Trusting your data
2. Connecting your data sets
3. Knowing your customers
4. Actioning and predicting
5. Continuous Review
So let’s look at how to tackle each of these step by step:
1. Trusting your data
People lie. It’s human nature. So use methods to ensure your data is accurate, with third party data validation services such as Experian, and ensure you make business decisions that reflect the reliability of the source.
Looking closer at digital data specifically, ensure your website analytics are collecting data that matches business rules that reflect your business needs. Is everyone in the business measuring a conversion at the exact same point on the site? Do all of your technologies collect data using the same methodologies?
Getting this phase right is the first step for any strong data driven strategy. The consequence of not investing in this phase results in some poor performance or worse still, not even being able to measure if something worked or not.
2. Connecting your data sets
All too often teams focus on the data readily available to them, such as their search website analytics, or their internal sales numbers. But to make significant, impactful decisions you need to think outside of the box.
How are external factors influencing your customers, such as the connection between weather and store location searches? How does email activity impact store footfall, overlaid with mobile location data? Or even further outside of the box, how does the number of ships going in and out of ports impact your business and foreign investments? Now the last one is a bit extreme, but one I have seen work incredibly effectively.
Don’t just stop at overlaying two data sets, try three or four and just try to build up a richer picture or what’s going on in your customers’ lives.
You’re probably thinking this wouldn’t work for you as you don’t have a full time Data scientist on hand to do this. That’s fine, grab what data you can and start to do some basic analysis yourself to see if there are any new trends.
3. Know your customers
Isn’t it the best when your local barista knows your coffee order before you even arrive? It’s that type of personal service consumers expect nowadays. The problem for most large organisations is how do you do that at scale.
Segment, Segment, Segment.
A good starting place is how do you measure success in your business but some ideas include products, AVO, propensity, device and location.
Anther simple way to start is take your top customers (value, recency, frequency) and work backwards. What did they do before they reached this stage? What channels do they engage with, what products have they previously bought etc.
From here you will build up a great picture of what is working and where the greatest opportunities are to start focusing on.
4. Actioning and predicting
Now this is where you become ‘data driven’. With your reliable, rich data, overlaid with new data sources, and relevant segments you can start to predict consumer behaviours. Again, this doesn’t need to be anything too fancy at the beginning, just get started.
Add value to your customers and make their experience with you as frictionless as possible, by targeting the right content, enhancing the checkout flow or simply making the CTA clearer.
Test different approaches, personalise experiences and continually review what works and what doesn’t.
5. Continuous review
As Einstein famously said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
To compete nowadays you need to get smarter in how to target your customers. Don’t assume the old ways work. Try new channels, new technologies, new messages. Continually review and change your approach, however small the change may be.
Recognise customers change based on external influences, they move through life stages; getting married, having babies, moving home, retire and you need to know this to be there along the way with the relevant message and product.
In summary, mastering data is certainly an ongoing journey, but overcoming these five key hurdles will put you on a clear path to becoming truly data driven. This approach can be scaled based on your business size, resources availability and expertise. But ultimately, the key is to get started, gain trust in your data, try something new to reveal insights, and put your predictions into action. Like many organisations embracing data, you may be surprised with what you find and the impact it makes to your business.
Kerry Dawes
Senior engagment manager
2DataFish - A Razorfish Global Company