The Classic Marketing Mistake Everyone Makes
Your marketing campaigns are only as good as the data they're built on…
It’s a classic mistake, but when it comes to marketing we are so often judged on numbers…how many new leads / prospective new clients / new-business meetings / telephone calls have you made this week? Numbers, numbers, numbers…
The reality is, the only number that really matters to the success of your company is: how many profitable sales have you generated? In other words, how much money have you made? All the rest, as I said, are just numbers.
And this is where the quality, and not the quantity of your marketing efforts make the difference. If your endeavours – be they by email, direct mail or telephone – result in only a handful of sales, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve contacted a hundred or a thousand new prospects – something is going wrong. And, chances are if your messaging and creative are all there, the main fault will lie in the quality of your marketing data.
For the past three years, an annual census by Econsultancy has found that poor quality marketing data has been the biggest barrier to email marketing success. In 2013, 50% of the survey’s 1,300 respondents cited substandard data as the predominant factor in limiting a campaign’s success. And it’s a problem that’s getting more prevalent, growing by 16% in the past six years. Regardless of your campaign’s medium, the same point still applies: if you’re failing to identify, target and, above all, reach the right decision-makers, you are failing to exploit the full potential of your business.
1. Never rely on old and outdated marketing data
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A new campaign should mean new targets and an up-to-date marketing database; it’s that simple.
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58% of businesses surveyed in the 2013 Econsultancy census stated that clean and up-to-date lists had the biggest single impact on improving deliverability.
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In other words, if you’re serious about reaching your target audience, do your homework.
2. Identify your key targets first, not last
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Updating your marketing data should not come as an afterthought on the back of a fully-developed marketing campaign.
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Instead, you should identify your target personas as a matter of priority, and shape your campaign accordingly.
3. Profile your existing customers
By understanding and analysing the size, industry sectors and geographical locations of your existing customers, you can:
4. Allocate time and budget for data management
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Think about how your data management will fit into the overall timetable of your marketing campaign, and schedule accordingly.
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Research the data management options available within your budget, and outsource if necessary.
A well-designed campaign is only as good as the data it’s built on. Ensuring the currency and accuracy of your marketing data should form an integral part of your campaign process, as should analyzing existing data to help target new prospects. Put bluntly, successfully reaching out to only one new customer and achieving a sale is better than contacting a hundred prospects and achieving nothing.
If you found this post helpful please download the free eGuide now: 3 reasons why now is the time to invest in data