Knowing With Precision: How to Use Marketing Data to Drive Sales

There was a time around the turn of the century (the one in 2000, not 1900) when leading marketing professionals could pretty much just go with their guts when it came to making decisions. 

Not anymore. 

These days, it's all about precision--gathering and using precise information about customers and prospective customers to make data-driven decisions. 

Using marketing data to inform marketing strategy became much, much easier is a trend that isn't going away any time soon, according to research conducted by Econsultancy and Google. 

Need proof? Take a look at these statistics:

• About two-thirds of leading marketers work for and with executives who value data-driven insights over gut instinct.
• Nearly 70 percent of the leading marketers in the United States say the companies for which they work use data to support decision-making at all levels of the organization.
• Marketing leaders at companies committed to using marketing data to make data-driven decisions are one-and-a-half times more likely than other marketers to say their organizations understand what customers are doing on the internet. 

Yes, marketing data make for effective marketing professionals. 

But with so many marketers relying on their guts, how would anyone even go about making the shift to data-driven decisionmaking? 

Making the move

Making the move to using precise marketing data to inform decisions does not have to be difficult--but it also won't necessarily be easy. 

Here's a five-step plan to get you started:

Step 1: Get buy-in from the C-suite. You're probably going to need to educate and train employees about the new paradigm and that will take support and resources from the corner office. So start by getting buy-in. 

Step 2: Educate, train and repeat. Getting everyone to move towards data-driven decision making will take some time, so focus on education and training on data and analytics. About 75 percent of marketers say the biggest barrier they face in helping their companies embrace marketing data is a lack of education and training. 

Step 3: Define your expectations and set policies. The marketing professionals who are considered leaders are much more likely to say their data and analytics strategy defines how they integrate data and related technologies. Having clearly defined protocols and policies helps ensure success. 

Step 4: Tear down those silos. Organizational silos might help each team store a lot of knowledge, but they do not promote data-driven decisionmaking. In fact, 93 percent of marketers agree that collaboration across marketing and analytics teams is a key to success. 

Step 5: Go all-in by betting on precision. Marketing data takes the gamble and gut out of determining how to best reach customers. If you are ready to go all-in on data-driven decision making, download ADTACK's DEFINING: Digital Marketing. 

It's a great way to know with precision that what you're doing is likely to work.