Marketing relies heavily on an audience that is constantly changing, whether it’s B2B or B2C. Advertising in magazines and newspapers, while still effective, has now been replaced by AdWords and email campaigns.
Over the decades as consumers and businesses shifted their wants and needs, marketing plans had to adapt with them. Messaging has become more personalized with content based on specific demographic data.
Which leads us to the present day. Marketing is no longer just witty content on printed paper. It requires high-level demographic data to pinpoint gender, location, education, as well as cultural and social influences of a population.
This data is used to promote products and services to the right target audience. Currently, a lot of this data is manually assembled using spreadsheets, ERPs, and CRMs.
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Marketing: the Lead Generator
“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” While Ralph Waldo Emerson wasn’t referring to marketing departments, it’s a quote that most marketers can relate to. In the marketing department, results depend on the company's yearly objectives, which can change based on external factors like the economy and consumer needs.
These objectives are then used as KPIs that trigger strategies around lead generation that promote the products and services currently being offered. Website traffic, content views, quality of leads, and engagement are among the measurements used to analyze the success of the initiatives set up by the team.
The journey a consumer or business endures can differ based on specific demographics. Perhaps they start with an email campaign and end up at the website filling out a form for a demo. Or perhaps they saw a Google AdWord and proceeded directly to contact the company.
How they begin in the cycle up until the end where they become a prospect or client is closely analyzed in order to understand what strategies work versus those that need to be reviewed.
Unfortunately, when it comes to finding the correlation between leads and successful marketing activities, most marketers have to jump through hoops just to find the data and reports. In order to find out if a campaign, social media post, or video has succeeded in bringing in viable leads, managers have to put together reports that stem from CRMs like HubSpot, ERPs like NetSuite, and even spreadsheets from Google.
Enter Business Intelligence
A BI platform can transform all this scattered data into actionable insights within a centralized data warehouse, where marketers can gain a clear understanding of their leads and campaigns.
Even if you have a foundational ERP in place, like NetSuite, having additional software designed to elevate data analysis is crucial for growth. A BI tool can optimize graphs, visualizations, and data tools, allowing marketers to fully grasp the effectiveness of each campaign and marketing effort.
Key Benefits of BI for Marketing
By implementing a robust BI platform, marketing teams can streamline their processes, gain deeper insights into their campaigns, and ultimately generate higher-quality leads that drive business growth.
- Unified Data Source: Consolidate data from various platforms (CRM, ERP, spreadsheets) into a single, accessible location.
- Enhanced Data Visualization: Create optimized graphs and visualizations to easily interpret marketing data.
- Lancement d'intelligence d’affaires pour la financeTrack the journey of each lead from initial contact to conversion, understanding which strategies are most effective.
- Campaign Analysis: Analyze the success of email campaigns, social media posts, Google Ads, and more to identify high-performing strategies.
- Customizable Dashboards: Use customizable dashboards to monitor real-time performance metrics and KPIs.
- Improved Decision Making: Make data-driven decisions based on comprehensive insights, leading to more effective marketing strategies.
- Predictive Analytics: Utilize predictive analytics to forecast future trends and consumer behavior, staying ahead of the curve.
The Marketer’s Journey
Google Analytics, HubSpot, Google Data Studio, Spreadsheets, and NetSuite ERP are just a few systems used by marketing professionals to track the user journey and measure the progress of a lead.
Each platform houses crucial data that also associates revenue to spend and ROI to initiatives. For example, if a marketing department is spending a lot of money on animated videos, the data in one of these platforms should be able to decipher one of the following:
- Videos are providing direct leads
- Part of the branding initiative creates a positive user experience which will eventually push a lead to become a client.
The Problem
Marketers often face the challenge of finding the right platform with the necessary data and then manually exporting it to another software that consolidates all the information
Why is This Important?
Since financial justification is crucial, marketers need specific data to support budget allocations for various tactics. Presenting an idea like launching an expensive video series without concrete data to show its impact on growing the company’s client base threefold in the past year is unlikely to gain approval in executive meetings.
Enter Business Intelligence
A business intelligence tool connects all the missing data dots into one comprehensive dashboard, eliminating the need for manual data entry and the tedious task of aggregating data from multiple sources.
Benefits of BI for Marketers
By leveraging a business intelligence tool, marketers can streamline their processes, make informed decisions, and align their efforts with the sales team, ultimately driving growth and efficiency in their campaigns.
- Unified Data View: Consolidate data from Google Analytics, HubSpot, Google Data Studio, Spreadsheets, and NetSuite ERP into a single dashboard for a complete view of the user journey.
- Eliminate Manual Data Entry: Automate the integration of data from various sources, saving time and reducing the risk of errors.
- Enhanced Decision Making: Access real-time insights and detailed reports that justify marketing spend and ROI, aiding in precise budget allocation.
- Streamlined Reporting: Quickly generate reports that demonstrate the effectiveness of marketing strategies, helping secure buy-in from executives.
- Sales Alignment: Foster better alignment with the sales team by providing data-backed insights and strategies, ensuring cohesive and effective campaigns.
- ROI Analysis: Determine the direct impact of marketing initiatives on lead generation and client acquisition, helping to optimize future strategies.
The Evolving Marketing Door
The sophistication of a BI platform will help marketers in finding precise analytics as well as the correlation between the data and the proof of strategy success. It will answer certain questions like: what has contributed to brand awareness? How has a lead become a prospect? What is our most popular webpage?
The Evolution of Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategies have transformed dramatically over the past few decades, driven by social, technological, and cultural developments. Despite the changing landscape, the need for easy access to data analytics remains constant for staying ahead of the game.
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