Mistakes can be costly. For example, in 1999 a team of Lockheed Martin engineers used the English system of measurement, while the rest of the team used the metric system in creating the Mars Climate Orbiter satellite. The use of two different measurement systems prevented the orbiter’s navigation coordinates from being transferred to a lab in California. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the orbiter was eventually lost in space, costing NASA $125 million. Not every mistake we make as marketers costs us the Mars orbiter, but they can cost quite a bit. Before embracing and developing an all-important data-driven marketing strategy, consider the following mistakes others have made before you and take a second look at your ideas before launch. Learn from these critical errors and you just may avoid data driven marketing mistakes that could cost you and your organization dearly.
- Forcing data to fit an idea or strategy
Too many times an organization has a campaign in mind before the data can be collected and analyzed to determine what the next steps should be. Always start with the data first then come up with goals, strategies, and tactics that work with the data you have, not the data you want.
- Overlooking possible consequences
Unfortunately, with or without data, many marketing mistakes are the result of a hurried strategy that doesn’t allow enough time to consider potential fallout. Can someone take your message the wrong way? Could the competition potentially use it against you? Be sure to consider every possible outcome before pressing “send.”
- Assuming what worked before will work again
“If it worked in print, it will work online,” said no smart marketer… ever. The whole idea behind data driven marketing is determining marketing goals and strategies based upon the data you have collected on your prospective, current, and former customers. Data shows us that people behave differently online and even from device to device than they did with “old media.” All former strategies need to be reconsidered along with updated data before implementation.
- Believing in one, tried and true marketing message
This is bad news for those folks who think data driven marketing will open the heavens and shine a light on the single perfect message that will create the most ROI for an organization. If anything, data will help you determine which messages will work for each segment within your target audiences. Remember, today’s market is incredibly diverse and fragmented. Data provides marketers with insights into who they are engaging with to improve messaging and build relationships – not just batch a blast the same message to the whole database and hoping something sticks. (You don’t need data to do that.)
- Ignoring available data
What good is your database if you’re not diving into it to understand your prospective, current, and former customers? Data can help us to understand who our ideal customer is, what our customer lifetime value is, and why customers choose to leave us. These three things can mean millions for your business. You have the data, use it – or ask a customer lifecycle marketing specialist how you can use it to win new business, keep current customers, and grow the right relationships.
Remember, data is the most critical component of smart marketing, but it needs to be accurate and up-to-date. Low quality data can cause poor decisions and, alas, marketing mistakes that cost money and time.
Right On Interactive helps organizations increase their revenue by helping them make sense of their data and utilize it to maximize customer lifecycle marketing strategies that focus on specific target audiences like ideal customer candidates, qualified leads, current customers, and customer advocates.
To learn more about how Right On Interactive can help you avoid data driven marketing mistakes and make your marketing team into rock stars, check out the ebook Surviving Big Data and be sure to download The Roadmap to Lifecycle Movement infographic for more information on lifecycle marketing.
It’s time to take a closer look at your data… and do something with it.
