When setting your marketing goals, did you first listen to the story your data was telling?
Yes, data talks. A marketing plan should be data driven in today’s information-loaded marketplace.Significant value exists in data and analytics. In fact, managing, collecting and making use of internal and external data was the second highest area of increased expectations of CEOs for their CMOs.
A survey of 3,000 top marketing professionals found that 74% plan to increase their data marketing budgets. Why? Their top 3 reasons:
- A need to be more customer-centric
- Maximize effectiveness/efficiency of marketing investments
- Gain more knowledge of customers/prospects
Marketing professionals across the world recognize the extreme importance of data in advertising and customer experience efforts, the survey by GlobalDMA and the Winterberry Group found. More than 77 percent said they feel confident in data-driven marketing and its future growth.
Using Data to Drive Marketing
Years ago we had minimal data at our fingertips, but today, because of technology, we can use data to drive our marketing. Are you using all of these key data points to drive your marketing plan?
- Financial - Gather revenue and expense data for the year
- Goals - Understand the company goals for 2016. Are they growth goals? Maintenance goals?
- Leads - Determine which marketing tactics generate actual measurable leads; are you using inbound marketing to gain leads?
- ROI - Calculate your customer acquisition cost and your customer lifetime value cost
- Competitors - Evaluate how your competitors are spending their marketing dollars and what gaps exist that you can leverage; what is your competitors’ online presence?
- Cycles - Identify what the average sales cycle is for each of your product lines; what kind of marketing works best in each cycle?
- Personas - Understand the pain points of your potential prospects, not what you want them to know about your service
- Digital analytics - do you have a digital strategy? do you know if it’s working?
Learn more about setting your marketing budget based on data in our free white paper Don’t Plan Your 2016 Marketing Budget Without These Facts. 
