Including How To Leverage Marketing Data Within Your Funnel
Understanding what kinds of marketing data there are and how to properly use them are critically important to your business. In today’s post, Marketwake’s Salesforce Implementation Architect, Zach Shirah, will be breaking down and explaining the 4 most important kinds of marketing data and how to use them in conjunction with one another. Stick around to the end for a bonus type!
‍‍Marketing Data vs. Analytics
Before jumping in, let’s quickly define and explain the difference between marketing data and analytics since many people use them interchangeably (hint: you shouldn’t).
Data
- is just a raw set of information that has yet to be organized or interpreted as to its usefulness or its connection (if any) with other information. Data can be either quantitative (i.e. number of users, time on page, cost-per-click, etc.) or qualitative (customer satisfaction, type of payment used, which product was purchased, customer info, etc.).
Analytics
- is what we’re able to infer by combining sets of data, or put another way, the story that we can uncover by investigating the relationships (if any) that exist between data. There may be patterns revealed, cause-and-effect relationships realized, and/or correlations made through analyzing data.
Website Analytics
When discussing website analytics, it’s important to understand that we’re talking about large generalizations of marketing data. We don’t necessarily know that Customer A performed Action Y, but we do know that a lot of customers performed Actions X, Y, & Z. It’s through analyzing a batch of users that we’re able to see patterns, make inferences, and then predict trends or possible future actions that we can capitalize on.
Some of the most popular and easy to use platforms are Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and Hubspot. When using Pardot (a marketing automation tool from Salesforce) within Hubspot, companies can see all actions performed on their website from a particular user’s IP address. This gives access to certain information such as:
- Customer B spent X amount of time on a page, or
- Customer B saw this page X number of times in the last week.
This helps us qualify leads, understand the buying patterns of both existing and potential customers, and also implement the necessary changes to attract, convert, and retain those customers.
Social Media Marketing Data
Social media marketing data is an extension of website analytics – it tells us what our customer base is doing on social media so that we can better market to them. What makes this type of marketing data so unique is that it happens on a more personal level which means we can test messaging with A/B testing.
When you know what types of content your audience is liking, saving, commenting, sharing, and responding well to, you’re able to hone in on that and provide more of it.
If someone clicks from your profile to your webpage and then buys something, you can see what leads to buying behavior. You can also see a ratio of what is needed to deliver a conversion. For example, you may find that your posts may need 500+ likes and 75 shares or retweets to convert a single customer. That type of marketing data is so incredibly useful because then you can further distill what truly counts as “high performing content.”
To further articulate the point, you might find that on Instagram, you consistently have photos that receive 2,500 likes, 500 shares, and 150 saves, but aren’t converting customers while each of your videos receives 400 likes, 20 shares, and 5 saves, but consistently results in 2 – 3 sales.
With this type of information, you’re better able to understand what leads to buying behavior and what leads to brand recognition. In the instance of the high performing photo with no sales, it’s likely that those types of posts are increasing your brand awareness and resulting in more followers, which is also highly valuable.
Lastly, make sure that you’re putting UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters on any button, CTA, or link that you’re dropping! This is how you’re able to track social media marketing data.
Are you in need of professional Social Media Marketing Services? We can help!
“Conversion data is anywhere where a lead is telling us that they could be a potential buyer” – Zach
The first two (web analytics and social media marketing data) helps us understand where the best places are to do marketing (in addition to what type of content performs best), but conversion data helps us understand how to turn those leads into sales.
This could be understanding how to capture name and phone number and then letting your sales convert them. Or perhaps you already have a potential customer’s name and email address because they’re subscribed to your newsletter, you could leverage a webinar sign up to better qualify your leads. The ones that sign up and spend 30 mins watching your content are definitely closer to converting than a passive newsletter subscriber that never interacts. This is what conversion data can tell us.
Sales Data
Sales data is the last piece of the puzzle that makes the first three types of marketing data worth it – because if all your efforts don’t lead to conversion then it’s wasted, no matter how well the first three are performing.
A lot of people say that “marketing ends with the handoff to sales” – that’s lazy. You could be missing out truly understanding what marketing efforts lead to the highest ROI. Instead, you need to follow your leads all the way through the funnel.
What happens so often is that Sales will point the finger at Marketing and say that the leads are garbage and then Marketing will point the finger back at Sales and say that they’re not closing. This is why using data in a CRM is so incredibly useful – your sales team should be able to point to the exact reason why a lead was either disqualified or didn’t convert.
This, then, opens the opportunity for a better conversation between Marketing and Sales teams. If Sales can properly convey what types of leads they should and shouldn’t be receiving, it helps Marketing refine their efforts and ultimately send better quality leads.
Looking for a Salesforce Professional to help you make the most of your Sales Data?
3rd Party Marketing Data
3rd-party marketing data allows you to widen your data set to segment more accurately and better understand your customers. The better you understand them, the better you sell.
For example, you might find that most of your big-ticket one-time sales come from a certain generation that makes above a certain income or that 80% of your total revenue comes from small monthly recurring revenue (MRR) purchased by a specific demographic. These are really important to know so that you can go back and refine your content messaging. You can also buy 3rd-party marketing data, which is super great!
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