Tag Archive for: engagement

The Power of Data Analysis

Global competition and increasingly ambitious business objectives leave no room for instinctive decision making.  Staying ahead in a world of infinite social media tweets and posts and online shops requires a 360-degree view of the elusive customer to guarantee successful and goal oriented omni-channel brand engagement. You have to know your customer and their every wish and desire to service them strategically and uniquely to guarantee sustainable success.

However, a 2017 CMO survey by Black Ink revealed that marketers perceived access to advanced analytics and general data to be the biggest hurdles in marketing; and, continually find themselves forced to rely on legacy solutions such as Excel or CRM systems.

The key to sustainably successful marketing is to align data insights with strategic company objectives.

Ask yourself:

  • What are your core objectives?
  • How does marketing contribute to these objectives?
  • Which data can you utilize to analyse your performance?
  • How will you measure success?
  • How can you design and install a systematic and continuous measurement process?

These questions will help you identify your key objectives and strategically collect and analyse data to measure success and inform strategy.

Be very selective about which data you choose to analyse and how and why. Metrics should only be included if the relationship between the metric and the goal is clear.

Such as:

Goal

Metric

Increase brand awareness Number of daily website visitors
Focus budget on most profitable customer segments Return on ad spend
Maintain market leader position Content trends
Optimise spending on campaigns Campaign conversion rates

 

This objectives-focused data analysis approach makes data both accessible as well as actionable by providing an in-depth performance summary, enabling decision making on the spot.

Metrics should be re-evaluated and modified regularly and made accessible to all team members; guaranteeing informed, prompt and appropriate decision making and goal oriented actions.

Source: Marketing Analytics dashboards: The do’s and don’ts

Know what your customers are thinking. Act now.
Read more about the Key to Successful Marketing.

Social Media Digest: Timing

The desirability of your content and products is always built over time (through social media). Treat it like building any face-to-face relationship, except you won’t actually see them. The quality of your content is also very important. No one wants to read you blabbing on about nothing of relevance.

Timing your posts has equal importance to the quality of the content you’re aggregating or creating. The timing of your posts will generally dictate what type of content you’ll write and for whom. As a general rule of thumb, post during (inspired by Kevin Munro @ Checklist):

06:00 – 08:30
(weekdays)

(The Breakfast Club)

Getting out of bed and switching on the TV is just too hard but you still want to know what’s happening out in the big wide world, so you reach for your phone which lives next to your bed.

Posts should be short, precise, light, positive and feel-good, without the sales pitch.

11:00 – 13:00
(weekdays)

(The Lunch Break)

You don’t have much time to eat that sandwich you just bought but you might want to be kept entertained while you eat it with one hand, so you grab for your phone.

Like breakfast, posts should be short and sharp and perhaps humorous, without the sales pitch.

15:30 – 17:30
(weekdays)

(The Distraction/Commuter Phase)

You glance at the clock and realise it’s almost time to clock off but realise you won’t be any more or less productive if you did any more work. You could be on your way home on the bus and don’t want people glancing back at you when you clearly weren’t looking at them, so you grab your phone.

People want to be distracted (yes, that’s right) from what they’re doing so your posts should be short, sharp and funny, without the sales pitch. Avoid too many videos or long articles. People want to be entertained, quickly.

19:50
(weekdays)

(The Recreational Period)

You might be making dinner (or not) and you’re definitely not watching the TV but it’s still on. You’re on your phone.

This period is where people are most engaged with social media. Your posts can be longer and include videos as people have more time to engage with your content. Make sure your posts here are good quality and, more importantly, relevant to what your business is or stands for, without the sales pitch.

Truth is every business’s social media schedule won’t be the same as the next. This will largely depend on the nature of the industry you work in and the type of people your audience is or already are. Adjusting your timeline to suit your target audience and demographic is ALWAYS okay. You can test out different times and see what works best for your business. Always post your content at the start of each period and not after so it’s there waiting for your audience to read.

Now, you might notice a little bit of repetition here: without the sales pitch. That’s right. Your audience does not want to be, nor are they interested in being, constantly pestered to buy something from you. It’s always a good habit to constantly remind your audience you exist without hard selling to them all the time.

Release your potential with market research. Get to know your customers better and how you can tailor your message to them more effectively. Find out what resonates and, equally important, what doesn’t.

Contact us now for a free, no obligation, 2 hour consultation with our Principal analyst.