“The focus is always relevance”: How data can drive personalized experiences at scale
Personalization is the number one priority for Tom Mitchell, Senior Lifecycle Operations Manager at Sona. The UK-based SaaS platform is used by industries as diverse as social care to hospitality for frontline scheduling. But creating personalized experiences that cater to completely different audiences, each with their own unique pain points and goals can make building personalized experiences at scale a challenge. The answer, says Tom, is having a complete view of all the data you hold on your customers, so you can segment your audiences and target them with the right message at the right time.
“The big thing for us right now is adapting our messaging for different verticals,” says Tom. “Different sectors have very different goals. For example, in social care, our messaging is how we can help our customers provide better care by giving staff a better way of working, whereas, in hospitality, the messaging is going to be more about how our customers can maximize their income by recognizing when they need more or fewer staff at different times.”
The challenge, says Tom, is ensuring everyone who lands on Sona’s website understands how the product relates to them. “We’re thinking about how we can market the product in a way that is industry-agnostic, without alienating anyone when they visit the website, but also providing them with enough specific information without compromising SEO or diluting the messaging across different pages.”
The solution has been to use “live chat, pop-ups, and other dynamic spaces on the website to offer a personalized experience,” says Tom. “If someone downloads a certain piece of content, we’ll guide them to other related content and take actions based on their interests. We make the most of automation to guide them towards booking a demo, creating an efficient journey.” The focus is always on converting hot leads, says Tom, “so we give people as many opportunities as possible to convert—but that means we need to get creative and efficient with how we’re doing that.”
How to make data the foundation of your marketing strategy
Marketing teams everywhere have amassed (and continue to gather) unfathomable volumes of data on their prospects and customers. But not all marketing teams are effectively leveraging that data to drive growth—and that’s a big mistake.
“Companies that effectively use analytics in service of marketing and sales performance are 1.5 times more likely to achieve above-average growth rates than their peers,” found research by McKinsey. “If outsized growth is the holy grail, adept use of commercial analytics is one clear way to get there, fast.” Yet, while “every company recognizes the power of data,” writes the Harvard Business Review, “most struggle to unlock its full potential." ?
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“The problems start at the beginning of the process, when many companies struggle to identify goals for their analytics programs, such as preventing churn or increasing cross-sells,” continues McKinsey. “As a result, while every company has significant volumes of data, many […] companies lack the capabilities to translate data into relevant, usable insights that help them to sell more effectively by improving their understanding of their customers’ experiences, needs, and triggers.”
That begs the question: How do you build a data-driven marketing strategy that gets results?
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through building a data-driven marketing strategy from the ground up, from deciding what data you need to how to collect and connect it; how to analyze your data; the benefits of a data-driven marketing approach; common challenges and how to overcome them; and finally, ?the future of data and marketing and how to prepare for it.?
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