Successful marketers are increasingly using customer data to gain a competitive advantage. A data-driven marketing team understands who buys their organization’s products and services before they jump into expensive and time-consuming marketing campaigns.

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uccessful marketers are increasingly using customer
data to gain a competitive advantage. A data-
driven marketing team understands who buys their
organization’s products and services before they jump into
expensive and time-consuming marketing campaigns.
Fortunately, the prevalence of CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) and POS (Point of Sale/
Service) systems in companies today means
that marketers have a ready platform for
uncovering and analyzing invaluable
data that previously had only
been available to the largest
and most sophisticated
organizations.
In a retail or B2C
(business-to-consumer)
environment, the
history of previous
purchases is being
used like never before
to tailor marketing
messages to the
individual consumer. This
move towards “Big Data”
analytics means that offers
these days are often being
individualized. You’ve probably seen
this when shopping online: “Customers
like you who bought product X also bought
product Y.” Sometimes it’s far less obvious, such as
with retailers whose mailers vary from one house to the
next based on demographics and past purchase data.
While “Big Data” is a hot topic in marketing to
consumers, the revolution is slow in coming to the B2B
(business-to-business) marketplace since the dynamic there
is completely different. Transactions are typically larger in
dollar value relative to consumer products, but far fewer in
frequency. This means that there are not enough data points
to serve as predictors of likely future purchases.
However, all is not lost since data can still be used to
answer important questions such as: What is the job title
of the person who normally makes the buying decision?
What size companies are you more successful selling to?
What kinds of companies are more likely to buy from you?
A system that collects just a few more key data points
can also tell you which of your competitors you most often
succeed or fail against, where your most successful leads
are coming from and why you won or lost a sale (price,
timing, relationship, etc.). Your sales team
may already be collecting some of
this data as a part of its sales
management process and, if
so, you should be using it
to tailor your marketing
approaches and
programs, too.
There is
immediate value
in being able to
target your limited
marketing dollars
to that “sweet
spot” where they
are likely to do the
most good. And,
as you become more
comfortable with what your
customer data is telling you,
you can also begin to explore
how to tailor your products or services
to reach those less likely buyers. In other
words, starting with the question of “who” and moving to
understand the “why”.
While the concept of target marketing is not at all
new, the ability to analyze real customer data now allows
you to be more effective in designing and executing your
marketing programs. Technology makes it possible to
act based more on real data and less on general market
research or gut feel.
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Data-Driven Marketing
Article reprinted from Fall 2013GROWTHBIZS T R A T E G I E S
MARK DIXON
CBIZ Benefits & Insurance Services, Inc.
Leawood, KS
913.234.1717 • mdixon@cbiz.com