5-steps in integrating data and analysis for marketing success

During this crisis, Now is the time to update—the 5-Steps Integrating Data and Analysis for Marketing Success to Drive Growth in 2020.

Implementing a Successful Customer Experience (CX) is not a B2C or a B2B approach; Market Leaders make it a Business-2-Person (B2P) strategy.

Our present situation is not only a safety issue; it’s a business issue. The time is now to put new frameworks, processes, and systems in place to deliver value to the customers that matter most.

As we climb out of the COVID-19 uncertainty, how should we focus on the right customers that will drive growth? What strategies can we employ to be poised to take share once the markets turn?

Developing your B2P strategy is part of the strategic continuum: Brand – Value, Value – Communications, Communications – Data-driven Account-Based Marketing. As you map out your business for the remainder of 2020: Focus your energy on appropriate marketing spending and efficient use of your sales team’s time?

Five steps to integrate data into your everyday brand, marketing, and sales operations.

Step 1. Segmentation [Customer, Market, and Price]

Many companies start with your ideal customer profile to find the companies that fit your services or products. That is a good start, so often, it’s subjective: Company A has been a stable customer, or Company B loves our products.

As your starting point, what we recommend sits in your tech stack (CRM, ERP, and Financial Systems). To truly understand your ideal customer, you must initiate an accurate Segmentation Analysis by doing a deep data dive into your customer and financial systems.  Further, embrace that you don’t have all the correct data to do this correctly, so explore ways to quantify otherwise qualitative descriptors and business practices of your existing and target customer base.

People tend to confuse market segmentation with price segmentation. In market segmentation, the goal is to find similar customers to market. Market segmentation is about the whole package, finding large segments of people that tend to behave and respond similarly. 

Conversely, price segmentation is about determining who, within the market segment, is willing to pay (WTP) how much. Price segmentation generally is developed aftermarket segmentation. 

Letting data tell you which customers fully utilize your offering, which customers are profitable, and which customers are not. Without developing Customer, Marketing, and Price Segmentation, you make decisions without full knowledge.

Step 2. Update your CRM

Once you have completed your Customer and Market Segmentation modeling and analysis, you can now begin the work to update your CRM. This should be considered an ongoing process going forward by defining the new objects that not only tag the ideal customer profile but also begin to bring visibility in the ranking so your marketing and sales teams can start mapping new target accounts.  Use analytics from the learnings and scoring schemes from your segmentation process to “triage” your customers so Salespeople know where they should be spending their time and why.

If not already part of your tech stack, look at data-enrichment tools like Zoominfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, InfoUSA, Datanyze, Infer, Clearbit, InsideView, Uplead, and Everstring. 

Step 3. Account Mapping

Once again, via the segmentation process, determine those ideal customers and uncover which products and services are the best fit to align your growth and customer needs? Remember that not all customers are created equal, and not all revenue dollars are created equal; overlay a Product Segmentation over your revised Customer Segmentation. The combination of Customer and Product Segmentation will be the beginning of your growth strategy with existing and target customers. A good start for your account mapping variables is customer scoring, product scoring, territory, family, and line item revenue and profit. Once you have finalized the mapping, you should integrate it into your CRM. Using Salesforce Enterprise CRM, you can leverage Altify for strategic account planning.

Step 4. Value Communications/Messaging Framework

Customer Intimacy is a crucial output of B2P strategy development.  With that goal in place, how and whom you target and communicate will set you up for success or unnecessary challenges for marketing and sales teams. Translating your Brand Strategy to a clearly defined value attributes and messaging framework by Persona and Customer Segment is the foundation for your Account-Based Marketing. It sets you up to deliver on your Brand Promise. [Case Study on Brand Strategy to Persona to Activation to ABM – Qualcomm]

As you develop messaging, make sure you categorize your messaging based on the Customer Experience Lifecycle (CXL). 

CXL (Customer Experience Lifecycle)

You have customers and prospects in each stage of the CXL at all times. Prioritize your efforts by your newly developed Customer Scoring [existing and targeted].

To deliver on Customer Intimacy, look beyond your existing marketing toolbox. Video marketing/selling using tools like Vidyard and Wistia will allow customization and a great way to stand out.

Conversational marketing via chatbot by means like Drift and Intercom can and will enhance the experience prospects have with your brand and your site.

Step 5. Update your KPIs with your B2P Strategy

Revise your KPIs to measure the success of your B2P Data-driven ABM Strategy for both customers and prospects as they move through the CXL. Most of our reporting is output from Hubspot’s existing library of pre-generated reports. For your updated dashboards, make sure you have visibility by target accounts by activity, sales rep, marketing, product/service usage, and Customer Scoring. You can use additional tools for reporting: Domo, Microsoft BI, Tableau, and Google Looker. If you want to look at ABM platforms to add to your stack, a few to look at Engagio, Terminus, 6Sense, Triblio, Madison Logic, and PathFactory.

CX or ABM is not nice to have; it’s vital in delivering on the success continuum of Brand-Value-Data-Pricing-CX that drives controlled and sustainable growth.

The key to success is mapping and communicating first internally, then consistency externally. Questions to answer: What is our brand? What value do we provide to customers? What data sources do we leverage to understand and score customers? How will we focus on and measure the success of our defined ideal customers?

Integrating data into your strategy, decision making, marketing, and sales will help you grow your company, one customer at a time: the right customer, the ideal customer. Enhance your Customer Experience Lifecycle now, during these uncertain times, to be ready when things open up and capture market share.

Take advantage of the market disruptions in your industry to get closer to those customers you should embed with, and understand how to utilize your scarce resources (Salespeople and Marketing $$$s) more appropriately.