Let’s be honest: most businesses are completely unaware of the goldmine right at their fingertips. This untapped potential shines new light on leads and prospects, tracks down unique consumer buying processes, and helps uncover trends to increase sales.
By reading the title of this post, you probably already know the goldmine I’m referring to…
You guessed it: data.
Why Data is So Important
These days, companies collect data for many reasons. It can be used to track leads, find out which products are hot on the market, and decide how to expand target audiences. Data is so important because there is so much information within it that can make your business better and give you insights into what you’re doing wrong and how you can fix it.
Something a lot of companies don’t fully understand is that having too much data can be just as detrimental to your business as not having enough data. Think of it this way…
You could have a database with x-million columns and y-million variables–that’s a lot of potentially useful information, but frankly is just too much to go through. Some of that data might not even be relevant to you and your business.
On the other end of the spectrum, you could have a list of first names and their associated companies, but that’s not going to give you any valuable insight either.
Finding that sweet spot will help you deliver more personalized email campaigns, initiate highly targeted research, and progress your business in the right direction.
Why You Want Your Data to be Squeaky Clean
Raw data can be pretty muddy and generally has to go through a serious cleaning before you can start analyzing it. When I say cleaning, I don’t mean giving it a nice bubble bath. I’m referring to the process of exporting and organizing contact data, cutting out the noise, and standardizing fields.
I’m sure you’ve (at least once) gotten something in the mail where your name was incorrect or they used the wrong suffix. Well, that is a result of uncleaned data.
So in order to generate more positive responses and avoid embarrassing blunders that can result in the loss of a prospect, you need to make sure your data is thoroughly cleaned and accurate. Ensuring you have clean, segmented lists allows for better campaign statistics, accurate A/B testing, and ultimately helps save your company money in the long run by providing insight into personal, highly targeted outreach.
Using Data to Improve Outreach
Data is relevant to everything you do. If you are a data driven company, the better and cleaner your data is, the more personalized your outreach is. More personalized outreach means more targeted and successful campaigns.
The cleaner the data, the easier it is to segment prospects, which allows campaigns to become even more targeted. You can also use the data to put contacts in different email series based on actions they make or data points they have associated with them.
Segment Your Prospects
Segmenting is your bread and butter when it comes to successful marketing campaigns. Essentially, it is the act of taking a giant list of contacts or prospects and splitting it up into different groups. You can segment by industry, employee size, title, etc.
For example, you may want to send a differently formatted message to a marketing director than to a CEO or President. You can also use data to segment industries that might respond to a specific message differnetly than another industry.
Some companies also segment their prospects based on where and how they met a certain contact. If you met and spoke to someone in person at an event, you will want to send them a more personalized email than someone you met via an introductory email.
You can also have a segmented list of people who were referred to you by another client so you know to mention something about that client to seem more personable.
You can start by segmenting your lists depending on who the target market is and the status of the client-prospect relationship.
Cashing in on Data
Your company’s personal data is so important because it shapes your business. You can answer so many business related questions with the data just floating around in your database.
Here’s an example:
You’re struggling to implement a successful email marketing campaign. Your open rates are below average and hot leads aren’t responding. Good thing your data is cleaned!
You’re not sure where to begin, so you start analyzing campaign statistics. Is this a list of cold prospects or are these warm, nurtured prospects? Are the subject lines too vague or too specific? Is the message unrelatable to my target prospects?
You realize that a previous campaign targeted a similar audience with great success. Taking key words, ideas, and calls to action from the successful campaign, you spruce up your current efforts.
Over the next few weeks, you see an increase in open rates and leads are now responding.
Great! You’ve successfully used data to improve your marketing efforts. But sometimes, it’s not that easy.
Sometimes you have to dive deeper into your target market (maybe the product/service you’re selling is more of a want then a need) or your messaging and analyze A/B testing. Sometimes the issue could be unrelated to your product or messaging (e.g., time of the year–holidays/summer hours–may affect your outreach).
Data can find out how many sales each person is making and determine if they’re pitching the wrong idea or if they are feature selling when they should be relationship selling. Therefore, if you’re struggling to reach your sales numbers, you can use data to find out why.
Collect it. Clean it. Segment it. Love it.
Your data is literally the life of your company. It explains where your company has been, where it is, and where it could go in the future.
It’s a resource that too often goes untapped and continues to be something that businesses don’t even think about. There’s so much data out there, and it’s potential benefits are limitless!
