What data should you collect for your marketing?

Data can have a big impact on your marketing, which is why it’s crucial to ensure that you have a sound strategy in place for collection. Data apathy, data silos and out of date, duplicate or inaccurate data can cause some serious issues and waste valuable resources at a time when most organisations are looking to see some serious ROI on marketing investment. Effective database management is vital to the success of your campaigns. So, with this in mind, what data should you be collecting for your marketing and why is it important to take the time to do this effectively?

Collecting data for marketing purposes

Whether you’re already collecting data for marketing or looking to start from scratch these are the most important types of data to focus on:

• Direct. This kind of data comes from someone who is already interested in your business via forms and preference settings as well as sources such as chat sessions or interactions with your customer service staff.
• Third party. There is a lot of data out there that comes from a third party source that could still prove to be incredibly valuable to your marketing efforts. This could include data that has been purchased, survey results or research that has been carried out by governments or other relevant bodies.
• Assumption-driven data. Here, you’re using specific sources to create inferred data that could help to shape better marketing outcomes for your business. This includes Event Horizon that is drawn from a prospects features, such as age, as well as the FAQs visited on a website and inferences about someone’s interests that have been drawn from pages they have been visiting online or documents that they have downloaded.
• Behavioural data. This kind of data often comes from interactions that your business may have had with a prospect. This could be something as simple as email behaviours – e.g. which articles do they open and what links do they click through to – or it might relate to how they engage or even events that they have signed up for.

Do you need to collect all this data?

No, the goal with data collection is to collect what you actually need so that you can use it in such a way that everyone benefits from its collection, including the customer and different departments within your business. Most prospects can make time for marketing materials that they find interesting or compelling, or which add something to their lives, and it’s data that can help you to create marketing materials that do this, with the knock on impact of benefitting your business in the long run. Start by looking at the data that you collect now, how actionable that data is and whether you’re already using it to achieve that ideal outcome. This will provide a starting point for looking at the data that you do need to collect.

Data is the key to making your marketing work and this all starts with ensuring that you’re collecting the kind of data that will actually be valuable to your business. With the right data you can hone your marketing efforts and improve the return on your investment.

If you’re looking to optimise your marketing strategy with effective data driven campaigns, learn about our CRM and database management services or get in touch by calling 020 7100 0726 today.