When I graduated from college back in the previous century, combining a Marketing degree with statistics received odd questions. It was a strange combination for many. Why would a marketing person need to know about standard deviations, data, and analytics?
Today's marketing professionals are all about the data. We measure everything from the number of clicks, website visitors, social posts, and content views. The focus on data is accelerating beyond the standard marketing measures, and the lessons learned in statistical analysis are more critical than ever. Marketing still has creative roles. The data nerd is taking center stage as the marketing leader.
Buyers are savvy, and marketers need to understand their patterns and tricks. For example, marketing measures email clicks to determine the success of the campaign.
Our audience is keen on our metrics and knows clicking on an email will result in a flurry of emails, targeting, and phone calls. The savvy buyer opens the email in the preview pane, which does not trigger the counter. The mail is read, and links are viewed outside the email framework. Our solution is to monitor the destination for increased traffic with a tracking code. We combined the two metrics to determine a campaign's success and leverage other technology to target our viewers.
The science of statistics provides the mental framework to leverage the data based on a hypothesis. In our example above, the assumption is our potential buyer is bright, and the best measure is website traffic combined with email clicks. It provides a fuller picture of the success of a campaign. We leverage other tools to then target whom we suspect is interested, and in practice, it increased our virtual event participation by 50%. The days of blasting an email and getting the best results are all but over. The message still needs to be on-point, and surrounding a prospect is critical to cut through the social noise.
The new targeting technologies are more science projects than marketing campaigns. Marketing can hyper-focus on unique prospects with a specific message based on a hypothesis. Hyper-targeting enables marketing to reduce the advertising spend with a higher degree of certainty and confidence. The marketing budget is already stressed and overspending on advertising is off the table. The technology is more sophisticated, enabling other data to be combined, segment our audience further. Adding demographic, behavior, and additional information allows a marketer to understand our audience patterns and deliver the right message at the right time on the right channel. For B2B marketers, this extends beyond the business walls to include where you live, shop, and travel. Your quiet time at home is a perfect place to get your attention.
Our ability to track and target is more than a little creepy. We all have messages delivered based on our web viewing, family life events and activity, and conversations in our homes. Marketing teams are implementing new technology to hyper-target our buyers. The implementation of AI will provide the ability to predict
our needs beyond just targeting. No more men's shirt ads for weeks after you just bought a men's shirt.
The creative part of marketing is still essential, but data science is becoming a more significant component in marketing programs. Targeting enables greater budget efficiency for organizations looking to increase revenue, market share, and margin.