Data Driven Marketing

Data driven marketing is the bridge that connects your marketing message with qualified buyers.

Data driven marketing is centered around the creation of specific “buyer” audiences and the conveyance of a tailored message, your message, to that targeted list of pre-qualified customers. 

Fundamentally, you are pre-selecting who your customers will be and ensuring your marketing message reaches them. Your mission then becomes connecting with these buyers in ways that they prefer.

The fundamentals of data driven marketing in 2023 are clear:

1. Define your total addressable market (how many pre-qualified customers are available).

2. Create buyer personas based on demographic, financial and behavioral variables.

3. Obtain industry specific campaign recommendations from experienced marketers and data scientists.

4. Target each persona across preferred marketing channels with tailored messages.

5. Modify marketing campaign (data, content and advertising) based on performance.

This technique is in stark contrast with traditional mass media marketing, like television and radio, which relies on broad communications to generalized audiences.

Here is a scenario to help illustrate the reality of data driven marketing:

Scenario A—Mass Media Marketing: Target all Southern California residents with offers and opportunities via television and radio advertisements. Campaign costs $25,000, reaches millions of people, and results in 10 deals.

> This cost per acquisition is $2500.

Scenario B—Data-Driven Marketing: Target upper class neighborhood homeowners that meet home value, income and equity requirements. Relevant data is used to target these prospects directly with offers. Campaign costs $5,000, reaches 50,000 people, and results in 10 deals.

> This cost per acquisition is $500.

Simply stated—The better the data driven marketing strategy, the better the campaign results.

Conclusion: Custom audience data that is comprised of valuable consumer and business insight are the engine that drive successful marketing campaigns. Data driven marketing strategy is pivotal in determining an organization’s growth rate and often separates good companies from great companies.

Total addressable market (TAM) database visualizations show precise breakdowns of demographic, financial and behavioral variables for all pre-qualified customers that can be targeted within your targeted geographical area.

This means that you will have an accurate count of every potential customer that is qualified to buy your product. You can then directly target these customers across multiple marketing channels.

Additionally, your team will be able to review and discuss key data ranges that are essential for setting goals, creating strategies and establishing budgets.

Here is a TAM example for travel enthusiasts in Ventura, CA that contains important breakdowns for gender, age, income and travel behavior:

TRAVEL ENTHUSIASTS IN VENTURA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: 171,328

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
FEMALE = 88,243
MALE = 83,085

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
AGE: 18-28 = 15,608
AGE: 29-38 = 15,866
AGE: 39-48 = 15,723
AGE: 49-58 = 32,563
AGE: 59-68 = 42,372
AGE: 69-99 = 49,196

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
INCOME: $75,000 – $99,999 = 37,781
INCOME: $100,000 – $149,999 = 54,662
INCOME: $150,000 – $174,999 =12,411
INCOME: $175,000 – $199,999 =18,850
INCOME: $200,000 – $249,999 = 1,469
INCOME: $250,000 and above = 26,155

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TRAVEL: UPSCALE LUXURY = 29,770   
TRAVEL: ENTERTAINMENT CARD HOLDER = 41,301
TRAVEL: FANATIC = 159,383
TRAVEL: FREQUENT = 63,224
TRAVEL: DOMESTIC = 115,343
TRAVEL: INTERNATIONAL = 51,894   
TRAVEL: CRUISE VACATIONS = 8,327
TRAVEL: TIMESHARE OWNERS = 10,993

Conclusion: It is nearly impossible to make smart marketing decisions without visualizing and discussing your total addressable market. Visualizations make your marketing data come to life. This recommended action item is an absolute no brainer.

Request free TAM database visualization for your company today

Every company should identify and define each of their buyer personas including purchasing tendencies and communication preferences.

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a description of who your ideal customer is. In past decades, we called these “buyer profiles” and “buyer models.” Buyer personas are unique for every company and can be based on demographic, financial, behavioral, psychographic and geographic variables.

Most business owners and marketers have a general sense of their customer types and who they want to target. We recommend getting started by defining your top three personas and giving each a name for easy reference.

Here is an example of persona creation:

Persona A—Young Adventurer: Loves to travel as often as possible, no kids, makes more than 75K, typical age 25 to 34. This individual is active on Instagram and responds to last-minute limited time discounts and coupons.

Persona B—Business Tripper: Travels monthly for work, makes more than 150K, drives luxury vehicle, frequent flyer card holder, typical age 35 to 54. This individual is active on business email and Linkedin and is responsive to high-end luxury offers.

Persona C—Retired Vacationer: 2+ trips per year, retired, married, net worth over 500K, kids out of college, typical age 55-74. This individual is active on Facebook and Messenger and is responsive to testimonies highlighting superior value.

Conclusion: Tailor messages and offers to resonate with each specific buyer persona. This will result in high engagement across each stage of your marketing strategy.

Experienced marketers and data scientists are able to analyze proposed campaigns and recognize important data targeting, content promotion and advertising opportunities that can increase performance.

Recommendation scenario:

Ask an experienced marketer, “What types of content and what channels work best for this type of marketing campaign?” The answer will almost always be an enthusiastic “This works… and this doesn’t!”

Example marketer recommendation: Target individuals across Instagram and Facebook with raw video testimonials of happy customers. At the same time, send personalized email invitations that reinforce time sensitive offers. Retarget customers on YouTube that interact with content but don’t respond.

Similarly, ask a data scientist, “Are there any unseen variables that will increase the performance of my campaign?”, the answer is almost always an emphatic “Yes” followed by valuable industry specific insights.

Example data scientist recommendation: Target married homeowners between the ages of 25 and 65 that drive a BMW or Mercedes. They are 3 times as likely to respond to travel related marketing campaigns.

Conclusion: It is very important to ask experienced marketers and data scientists (within your industry) to make strategic data, content and advertising recommendations to strengthen your campaign.

We live in a world of buyer preference: many respond to email, most hear about products on social media, almost all search the web before buying, and certain demographics respond to phone calls and letters.

Why is to important to identify which marketing channels to leverage?

Successful marketing exists when you get the right offer, to the right audience on the right channels. Furthermore, most buyers hear about brands in one place, talk about products in another, and eventually make a purchase someplace else. This is why it is so important that your brand and offerings have consistent messaging across each marketing channel.

How do I upload custom audience data into multiple marketing platforms for direct targeting?

Follow the instructions below when uploading lists from your database to ensure the highest level of data performance during marketing campaigns:

Direct mail: Name, street, city, state, zip

Telemarketing: Name, phone, street, city, state, zip, phone type, dnc flag

Social media (Facebook – Instagram – Twitter – Linkedin): Email, mobile, name, city, state, zip, dob, age, gender

Web search (Google – Bing): Email, mobile, name, country, zip

Email Marketing: Name, email, state, business, job title, validation date

Conclusion: Expert marketers target personas with tailored omni-channel advertising. Remember… when you reach customers across varying touch points you are 4X as likely to get them to respond.

As campaigns drive conversions, opportunities and customers—marketing databases should be adjusted to increase contract values, shorten sales cycles, reduce churn, and decrease costs.

It is very important that marketing and data science teams review sales totals as often as possible. The goal of campaign iterations is to figure out the best source of traffic, leads, and revenues and then scale those efforts.

Marketing campaigns can be adjusted in three primary ways:

Data: Refine or expand the lists that are already being targeted

Content: Replicate high performing content types and variations

Budgets: Reallocate ad spend based the cost-per-acquisition for each channel

“Don’t abandon a marketing channel because it isn’t working—it’s not because the channel is bad—It’s because you haven’t figured out how to make it work.”  Jeremy Koenig, GP President of Digital Strategy

Conclusion: The best marketers reconcile sales totals with marketing campaigns to increase performance from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, and year-to-year.