Companies around the globe are spending time and money to grow their digital presence, but many are relying on either feelings or facts. We want to equip them with a data-driven process to give them confidence when creating strategies and plans and presenting them to stakeholders. The strategy requires a need for both approaches.
The Importance of Being Data-Informed
Data-informed decision-making starts with a company’s goals. Consider the key performance indicators or measurable statistics of success. Data-informed decision-making takes the data from the individual performance indicators and helps decision-makers determine next steps. It includes other factors, too. The numbers are important, but so are human experiences and intellect.
Data-driven decisions are all about the numbers. Other outside influences have no say. There is value in balancing the facts about data and the feelings of humans, though. Intuition is something data cannot mimic. Having a balanced team that is open to both facts and feelings is important when it is time to make the tough marketing decisions.
Key Benefits of a Data-Informed Approach
There are key benefits to a data-informed approach for decision-making. It’s up to you and your team to determine if it is the best fit for your business.
- Enhanced Decision-Making: Data is not the only factor in making decisions, and this helps the team think deeper and differently. When a team is able to examine data from the past quarter while using intuition about a real-life event that could have impacted the results, decision-making just went to another level.
- Improved Customer Understanding: The numbers can say a lot about your audience, from who they are to how they shop. Analytics allows decision-makers to spend time getting to know a bit more about their customers. Behaviors, preferences, and trends allow them to solve problems they didn’t know existed or predict a customer’s next steps.
- Optimized Marketing Strategies: Data allows campaigns to be targeted and personalized. The response from the customer is worth the time and money. Data informs marketing strategies, including the best time to send an email or the best way to create segmented audiences. Sending the right email to the right person is the perfect match for engagement.
- Increased Operational Efficiency: Companies waste money every year by emailing, mailing, calling, and so much more. The problem is not the action. The error is they are connecting with everyone instead of their correct audience. Data-informed decision making would allow them to make more confident decisions about their marketing strategies.
Integrating Data into Your Digital Growth Strategy
If you want to grow your digital presence, you have to start with the right questions. Who is your audience? What is their problem? How does my company provide a solution? How can I connect my consumer with their solution?
To decide where data can help your questions, think about numbers. Can the response to my question be measured or monitored? If so, start collecting data based on filters that are most important to your success.
While trying to determine your audience, track your demographics. To see your customers’ problems, identify how they found your service or product through keywords. Collect data that is measurable and ideally directly from the customer. Consider first-party data that you can gather, such as social media chatter or purchase history.
When you find your data, let it inform your next decisions. Sit down with your team and let it inform your next move. Rely on company history, experience, real-time events, and more to determine your next steps. Act quickly, but not in isolation. Talk to your team.
InsightFlow Analytics: Your Partner in Data-Informed Growth
We’re here to partner with you in your data-informed decision-making. Our features make a difference, from collecting data and organizing your work to saving searches, we make it easy to start data-informed growth.
- Capture your data, put it in your workspace, and share it with others
- Find topics through fast, effective searches
- Create documents based on your data-informed research
- Organize and tag your data
- Connect your hard work and visualize it through a knowledge graph
- Collaborate through team spaces
Get started with your data-informed strategy. We can help you take the first step by introducing you to the tools that you need in your toolkit. If data is not a part of your decision-making process, you are already behind. We are here to help you catch up and lead the way.
Sign up for a demo or trial of InsightFlow Analytics.
