In previous posts, I have described some of the many benefits of collecting and analyzing data. The process of monitoring and evaluating data for insights is changing the way that many businesses operate. The goal is simple – to reveal information that can increase a business’ efficiency and/or effectiveness.
Unfortunately, a lot of the data that is being collected, especially by small and midsize businesses without the resources for advanced analytics, is very high-level. This means that only aggregated metrics are being collected, like the total number of website visits, or the number of Facebook likes. There is no question that this information has value. This high-level data can serve as a gauge for overall marketing effectiveness as well as to establish trend lines. However, a lot of good information is absent. What sources drove the most traffic to the website? Of those sources, which produced the most online conversions? These questions are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
What I’m getting at is, the more granular the data collected, the more potential insight that can be derived from the analysis of the data. Now, this isn’t to say every company should collect every tiny piece of data – that would get expensive and time-intensive, very quickly. However, understanding how a business goal translates into an analytics strategy can start you down the right path of collecting and interpreting data on your clients and website visitors.
However, each client base is different and will respond differently to the ways a company engages it. In fact, different segments of a particular company’s client base may act in very distinct ways. For this reason, when evaluating and analyzing client engagement, the first step is client segmentation – identifying the aspects your of various customer groups, that make them differ from one another.
These segments can be based on a number of factors. Your business may sell one product, but it could be purchased by three different types of consumers (for the sake of this example, these could be end-level consumers, contractors, and retail stores). Each segment will act uniquely and therefore your engagement strategy should be customized based on the client segment. Of course, you will have to determine what segments of your client base are relevant. These segments could be based upon identifiable differences between the types of consumers, or possibly just the amount of revenue generated over a specified period of time. Initially, keep things simple. You can always make your segments more advanced/specific as time goes on.
Once you have determined what activities and activity levels to base your segmentation strategy upon, the next step is to customize the way you engage each segment. This could mean different engagement schedules, different email formats, and even creating dynamic content for your website. During this process, you should be measuring the specific outbound and inbound engagement activities across client segments. From this data, you will quickly identify the most productive ways to engage each client segment.
How to use this Information
Begin to monitor the way your business and your clients interact with one another. By identifying key customer groups through client segmentation, and by measuring the engagement activities you make use of, you can quickly notice trends as to how clients react to the ways you engage them. Then you can optimize your company’s engagement activities to generate the most return from each client segment.
Here at Webolutions®, we utilize the model described above to collect and organize our clients’ engagement data, as well as our own. Of course, the specific segmentation strategy, as well as the engagement activities and scoring systems that you choose to employ will be specific to your business. As a full-service marketing agency, Webolutions® can offer assistance in starting this process within your organization. If you would like to learn more about how Webolutions® can help you with this or any other digital marketing questions, contact us online or give us a call at 303-300-2640.
