Dos and Don’ts While Analyzing Your Marketing Data

Strategic thinking is a vital piece for your business growth. To think strategically and more proactively, you’ve got to mine business data. After mining the data, you’ve got to analyze it — and that’s where visualization tools come into play.

Data visualization helps in the thorough analysis of your marketing data. It’s essential for business owners and top executives who desire to gain valuable insights into the marketplace. Information gotten from compelling visuals can be used to make more informed decisions.

To make informed decisions, you’ve got to thoroughly analyze your marketing data. And the best way to do it is by using different Likert scale examples. But there are rules to the games — and you’ve got to understand the dos and don’ts.

Here are some dos and don’ts you’ve got to pay attention to while analyzing your marketing data. These could form the framework to help you transform marketing data into measurable results.

DON’T

…mine data without translating it into digestible information.

Mining data is good, but you can’t stop there — you’ve got to take it a step further by translating such data into valuable information. If there’s no clear path for utilizing your data, then gathering such data will be of no good.

Why are you mining data, and how will it be beneficial to your business? Answers to these offer a compelling reason why you should mine data. Data is of no good if there are no plans for utilizing it. As a business owner, you would agree that companies that study and identify customer behavior will pretty much outperform their competitors in the marketplace.

DO

…come up with a good plan while putting your marketing objectives, business growth strategies, and team into consideration.

You’ve got to pinpoint your business goals before collecting and analyzing your marketing data. Create a data-driven culture in your organization. After that, you’ve got to be pretty sure that the collected data is thoroughly analyzed, understood, and executed. This way, you would have a more robust decision-making process. The level of impact in your organization, to a large extent, lies in your ability to come up with a solid data strategy.

DON’T

…exclude context from your data.

The assumption is the least level of knowledge. Yes, that’s true — and it applies to data visualization. Never assume your audience has a background knowledge of what you’re presenting to them. To avoid such pitfalls, you’ve got to include context to your data.

Always relate your reports to what’s relevant to your audience. It could be the company’s long-term goals, key performance indicators (KPIs), hypotheses, and other parameters like market contingencies. If not, your data will make no meaning to them.

DO

…tell a story.

Telling a story with your data is one of the best ways of making your data relevant. Tell a compelling story in a clear, captivating format. Your story has to provide necessary information as well as additional context and conclusion. Facts and figures are okay, but they are somewhat boring, and you can make them much more insightful by telling a good story.

DON’T

…lose focus.

With the plethora of data available today, it’s quite easy to get distracted and lose focus. But that should not be the case. Always keep the big picture in sight. The more metrics you have, the more likely you’re to get distracted.

You’ve got to be in constant communication with decision-makers and stakeholders in the organization. This way, you can easily identify what’s needed, and what’s not — and run with it.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ve got to direct your focus to the specific data that should be analyzed. Nothing more, nothing less.

DO

…focus on your goals.

If you desire to gain the most actionable and relevant insights, then you’ve got to focus on your goals. The more focused you are on your focus, and what you aim to accomplish with your marketing data, the more likely you will accomplish it.

DON’T

…assume marketing data analysis is gut feeling or subordinate to qualitative analysis.

All marketing decisions should be based on facts. Making decisions based on gut feelings and random thoughts will possibly lead to more mistakes. To make informed decisions, you’ve got to do your homework, and present your findings using compelling data visuals.

DO

…make sense of your data via quantitative and qualitative analysis.

More goes into gaining in-depth insight from your marketing data analysis. First, you’ve got to begin with hypotheses and inferences. To make it more meaningful, you’ve got to add contextual data to the mix. Quantitative and qualitative analysis are sure proof ways of making informed decisions.

Wrap Up

Analyzing your marketing data is a reliable way of gaining insights into the behaviors of your customers. And if done the right way, you would pretty much make informed decisions in the long run. After mining core data, you’d have to translate the data and easily point out the weaknesses and strengths of your company.

But first, you’ve got to have a good grasp of the dos and don’ts of marketing data analysis.

Without a good understanding of the nitty-gritty that goes into marketing data analysis, you would likely not get the full story represented in complex data.

Moving on, you’ve got to stay updated with the recent innovation in your industry. This way, you would stay ahead of your competitors. 

If you manage a large business, then you’ve got to get a functional analytics team in your business. The team will help in handling the logistics and every detail that goes into gathering raw and translating it into easy-to-understand information.

If there is an analytic team in your organization, then offering extra support won’t be a bad idea.

Now you understand the dos and don’ts that go into analyzing your marketing data, what tip appeals more to you?