1.7 From Data to Strategy: Using Data Sources
Understanding the traffic sources, volume, and behavioral patterns associated with each step in the marketing funnel is critical to providing an optimal experience to customers. We’ve discussed, for instance, that consumers use different keywords at different stages in their buying journeys. Understanding these keywords can help organizations optimize their marketing funnels. Keywords, after all, are essentially the language that consumers use at different times during the purchase decision. Knowing that consumers use the term “accounting software for interior designers” when they first research products can help increase top-of-funnel conversions. If, on the other hand, once they have been educated on the accounting software market, more seasoned shoppers use the industry term “service business accounting software,” so companies can then tailor marketing experiences to these consumers who are close to buying. Data on the number of consumers who search on each term can provide marketers with numbers that inform their understanding of the marketing landscape. However, the real value in data analytics is in using data to make wise marketing decisions. That requires taking a broad view, connecting numbers and facts with the human realities that underlie them. Throughout the book, we’ll be looking at both types of data and the big-picture analysis that each data type supports.
Integrated and Data-Drive Marketing
At the heart of modern data-driven marketing is the concept of inbound marketing. Inbound, developed by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, founders of Hubspot, is based on the idea that consumers are best attracted by interesting content and experiences. Examples of inbound marketing include the following:
Publishing a free ebook on a topic of interest to consumers, showcasing a firm’s expertise in an industry. An example would be a car parts company publishing an ebook on spark plugs to market itself to car repair shops.
Organizing an event in your sector to attract consumers. An example would be a beauty company creating a free makeover popup event at a sustainable living fair.
Posting informational videos to a company YouTube channel. Many companies do this. An example would be a skateboard company launching a series of how-to tutorials with popular skaters.
Whenever a company provides free information, content, or educational entertainment (“edutainment”), there is a good chance they are engaging in inbound marketing. Not all content marketing is entirely inbound marketing—it can be a part of a more traditional advertising campaign. However, inbound is, at its core, a content marketing discipline. Where it intersects with data-driven marketing is its emphasis on continually measuring what content engages prospects. Inbound and other content marketers spend a large part of their time measuring what materials get the most clicks, then providing customers with more of the content with which they engage most.
Both inbound marketing and content marketing as a whole are increasingly popular with companies. These are both data-driven marketing disciplines. After all, you can’t create content to attract consumers without first gathering data on their interests. You also need to measure the outcomes of content campaigns. Creating quality content is often expensive. Professional writers, videographers, and designers are needed to create materials that can compete with national media’s content. This means that companies scrutinize their investments in content marketing closely. A lot of this data originates as search data. As we have seen, keyword data shows us what topics are popular among consumers. That data can help identify not only products, but content topics and experiences in which consumers are interested.
When we look at inbound marketing, it encompasses content, as well as social media and organic search—all ways to reach consumers outside of conventional advertising. Hence, for content marketers doing inbound marketing, search data is especially important. It can help identify whether specific inbound marketing efforts have results in conversions. It can increase search visibility, help set priorities for new content based on conversions and keyword popularity, and help with generating new ideas. In the next section, we’ll explore the many ways in which search data is important to modern marketing practices.
Creating Actionable Data
As with any analytics effort, there are two steps to using search data for marketing funnel optimization.
The first is to know that the data is, in fact, telling us the story we think it is—that we are seeing a clear data signal. This can be especially complex when analyzing the marketing funnel, because at each step of the funnel, many factors influence whether a consumer moves to the next step of the funnel. Looking at keyword data, we want to be sure it’s telling us about consumers’ progress through the funnel. This can start with looking at the behaviors of consumers who originated using different keywords. Marketers then often need to pair that data with other data on consumers’ intent. For example, if consumers using one search term are more likely to convert to sale, and that term is often used in sales conversations by consumers who have been researching product options for a while, then it’s likely that that term is one used by sophisticated, ready-to-buy consumers. Keyword conversion data, paired with text analysis of sales call transcripts, can show a positive correlation between consumers who use the term “service business software,” sophistication about the industry, and propensity to buy.
Figure 1.8 Marketing Funnel Optimization
The marketing funnel looks at how consumers find and engage with a brand.
Once we’re sure that our data is providing insight into consumer actions, our second step is to decide what actions to take on those insights. The useful aspect of keyword data for marketing funnel optimization is that it can guide multiple parts of campaign creative: ad copy, landing page content, even offers are suggested by keywords. For instance, an offer of a free trial is likely attractive to prospective leads if “accounting software free trial” is a high-traffic keyword. At each stage of the funnel, the keywords used by consumers provide a framework for producing marketing creative that “speaks the language” of those consumers. Marketers can use keyword data to create a rich funnel experience, once that reflects the consumer’s evolving reality as they progress from learning about products, to consideration, to purchase. Effective marketers connect keyword usage to the consumer’s mindset rather than seeing them as mere automatic triggers of search traffic. They then use these clues to customer mindsets to generate the right materials for consumers at the right time. Let’s see how that looks in action.