Use Data to Inform B2B Marketing Changes
Categorized in: B2B Digital Marketing
When it comes to B2B marketing, it helps if you understand that the goals are directly tied to the business objectives. Everything that marketing does should, in some way, help bring in more business. This can be done through a variety of functions, but the anchor is always the business goals. Once those are established, marketing can develop a strategy that aligns with them.
The issue is, the B2B marketing strategy you developed a year ago, for example, may no longer be working – or maybe it never really worked as well as you hoped. Well, it’s clear that it’s time to make some changes. Yet, it’s important to be careful. Change can’t be random; it has to involve data.
Don’t Act on Your Instincts
When clients come to us with a sense that something isn’t going right and something needs to change, they may have some impressions of what needs to change. They may even feel tempted to dive in and make these changes, or encourage us to do so. In our experience, a gut instinct is just the beginning of the process. We don’t want to invalidate these instincts, but they really need to be confirmed before acted upon.
This is where data comes in. Making changes right away is hasty, making informed changes after analyzing the data is always the preferred option. Instincts can be a good launching point, but this isn’t enough to base tweaking an entire strategy on. This is a lot more involved of a process that needs to be backed with data.
Know the Misconceptions Before Changing
Here are some things that people don’t often talk about the it comes to making changes to a B2B marketing strategy. You could feel like it isn’t working, but you actually might be wrong. Your marketing could be performing better than you expected. This is one thing that data might bring to light. Sometimes, operating on gut instinct might negatively impact choices. You may feel as if you need to make more changes than you really do.
Not only that, but what if you make changes prematurely? What if you make a change and it actually messes up your results for the worse? This is another big reason why you need to start by analyzing the data before discovering a course of action. The truth is, you may not need to overhaul the strategy. You may uncover just one or two things to tweak that will make a huge difference in the right direction.
Be Thoughtful when Using Data
The main thing is that you really should be thoughtful when it comes to using data. Collect the data first. Look at your traffic sources, engagement, conversions data, and more. You want to look at everything you can in an effort to uncover patterns that can be used to make important changes to the marketing plan.
Only after you look at the data and get a feel for what you are seeing should you entertain making changes. We recommend taking a conservative approach, too, when making tweaks. You often don’t need to overhaul the whole strategy. You might just need to change one or two things. Also, the data will make it clear if you do need to overhaul the overall strategy.
Data is so important to helping you make good decisions for your B2B marketing. In fact, you shouldn’t make decisions without it!
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