As I heard someone say once, “the fact is most organisations suffer from DRIP – they are data rich and information poor”. I’ve been interested in data for years and teaching other people how to get more out of it remains a favourite quest as I strive to get small business owners to take investing in marketing seriously. With that in mind I read a really interesting chapter recently from a book called “The Science of Marketing” by Dan Zarella. It was on Twitter and I’m going to share some of the useful tips I read, below. Overall the book is about using data and analytics to make marketing work for you.
Data Alchemy
Obviously in a digital age, data is everywhere but for many non-specialist marketers it may not be obvious why it is essential. In fact, a whole industry has grown up through the availability of data and the software that allows businesses to create databases, analyse and pull the data for targeted campaigns and customer relationship management. But what practical use does it have? One marketing fundamental that requires data is segmentation, and all good marketing is based on this. Segmentation is the difference between mass spamming and targeted, effective efficient marketing. It’s so important that I’ll come back to that in another blog. For now, I’ll refer to some insights that Mr Zarella revealed as a result of his mining data on Twitter use, aided and abetted by some funky software.
Data “alchemy” happens when we create insight from disparate bits of data – elemental facts about our customers, the marketplace and our business model.
For example:
Mr J Smith purchases product “a” Mr John Smith purchases product “b” Mr and Mrs J A Smith purchase product “c” – these are simply elemental facts that in themselves don’t allow us to do much. However when you can combine data with other data – say the address of one customer and the d.o.b. match - you then know that you are dealing with the same individual. This is Information.
Combine the first with the second and first of all you know you have a valuable customer in the Smith and armed with this, you can decide what to do. This is Insight and insight is knowledge.
That is the value of data to a business. Knowledge allows you to make strategies and decide on tactics. Without it, your marketing is of the random, scatter gun approach that led to the situation whereby people used to accept that half their marketing worked – but they didn’t know which half! A lot of expensive mistakes ensued.
A shed-load of data becomes available from all parts of a business – hence the term data warehouse which refers to the numerous depositary systems and databases that take feeds from data input from sales, finance, marketing, service etc. The CRM and enterprise wide systems introduced during the nineties and noughties all sought to provide the holy grail of a single customer view (SCV) for businesses, one unique identifier that holds the key to calculating the current and lifetime value of your customers. Of course, most long-standing organisations never make the investment to achieve this. For many of them, linking up their disparate operating systems, and creating ways for them to talk to each other has led them to huge investment in data projects and software installations that have tied them up in knots for years without yet yielding the promised ROI.
Start-ups Have An Advantage
While many start-ups I am sure are busy concentrating on bringing in new customers, they don’t necessarily appreciate the value of this exercise beyond list building. My advice, for what it’s worth is to take your database seriously and build your CRM strategy from the outset. Armed with the insight they bring, you can really drive up the effectiveness and profitability of your marketing.
Data & Social Media – 7 Top Tips
In the rest of the blog I’m going to share how Dan Zarella has mined data from Twitter to provide some really interesting insights into making social media, more specifically Twitter more effective. Right up front, he makes the point that you really have to be all over it - in it, on it and on top of it to get any benefit and this where most small and growing businesses fall down. This is also where Neontics can help you. If you want specialist support to create and implement your marketing strategy and make the art and science of social media work, please get in touch by emailing Liz@neontics.com
Tip #1 Table Stakes
Whatever you do you must get this one right. Twitter allows you to provide three pieces of biographical data telling people who you are, showing a picture of yourself and then a short 160 character statement describing you and what you do – this is the bare minimum, the table stakes to getting it to to work for you. Don’t leave these blank and do put some thought into what you say about yourself. It’s a really good discipline. Completing the profile thoughtfully and carefully can help you to recruit followers. (and for most of us it is about creating followers)
Tip #2 Make a good first impression
Based on Zarella’s analysis he determined that the most followed sites sound positive and authoritative in how they describe themselves. They appear to have something of added value for followers. They tell people why they should listen to you. Perhaps you have specialist skills, expertise, experience or something to sell that they want. If you’re a best-selling author tell people that.
Tip #3 More is More
When it comes to being read and noticed you want your followers engaging in conversation but also sharing content in a viral way. From his analysis of accounts it seems that the first magic number is to get over 1000 followers and then to be aiming for at least 22 tweets a day! That’s a sizeable commitment for a small business owner who probably has to be doing the business, running the business and getting the next load of business in. But according to Dan, anything less is going to be drowned out. So in this instance more is better – you simply cannot over-tweet it seems! So the question is – who in your firm is going to do that?
Tip #4 What is there to say?
The aim is to broadcast a lot of interesting content. This means researching your audience, the kind of content they are interested in, generating some of it yourself to add value and raise awareness and interest in your particular expertise, and then broadcasting it. Pressing publish or tweet is the easy bit. Having the energy and ideas to keep generating ideas is a bit harder – especially if it isn’t really your forte. This may be where some external support comes in.
Tip #5 But Then Less is More
There is no marketing benefit, in terms of increasing your reach and spread, by concentrating on being in conversation. So while replying to messages is well and good – perhaps it supports customer relationships – but in itself, it doesn’t grow your business. For this you are better off focussing on sharing interesting content that your audience wants to read. The accounts that appear to generate are those that post 60-80% links (i.e. Tweeting and sharing links to interesting content) get more retweets so more spread of your name and content. But be careful as once you approach 90% links you have to be careful not to get into the territory of spamming people.
Tip # 6 And About 120 is About Right
The maximum number of characters allowed is 140 – but think about it, if you are trying to get retweeted, then you should allow space for people to add in their own comment too.
Tip #7 But How Should I Say It?
If you are writing to be re-tweeted, then including at least one @…… ensures that one person will probably read it an potentially retweet. Also including a hashtag or “#”means that people not currently following you can find you if they are searching for information on which you are writing or you are writing on what is trending. And going back to tip 3, links whether they are embedded photos, video, or an article you want to share can provide something of interest and value.
Finally – in social media, capturing attention in a short space of time, when we are already bombarded by data and information from all points is dependent upon our being interesting or different. So the tried and tested communications formula of being in the right place at the right time (see above), crafty well crafted and often provocative headlines help differentiate you from the rest.
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