Marketing 0

Step 1: Define the Data-Driven Marketing
Objectives
It seems like a no-brainer to start any project with clear goals. But
too often, a data-driven marketing project is launched with the
objectives as an afterthought. Moreover, most data projects become
too ambitious because marketers want to accomplish everything at
once. As a result, the projects become too complicated, proven
results become challenging to achieve, and companies eventually
give up.
The use cases of data-driven marketing are indeed aplenty and broad
in scope. With big data, marketers can discover new product and
service ideas and estimate market demand. Companies can also

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create customized products and services and personalize the
customer experience. Calculating the right pricing and setting up a
dynamic pricing model also requires a data-driven approach.
Aside from assisting marketers in defining what to offer, big data is
also useful to determine how to deliver. In marketing
communications, marketers use big data for audience targeting,
content creation, and media selection. It is valuable for push
marketing, such as channel selection and lead generation. It is also
common to use data for after-sales service and customer retention.
Big data is often used to predict churn and determine service
recovery measures.
Despite abundant use cases, it is crucial to narrow the focus to one or
two objectives when embarking on a data-driven marketing
endeavor. By nature, people are wary of things they do not
understand, and the technicalities of data-driven marketing can be
the intimidating unknown for everyone in the organization from top
to bottom.
FIGURE 8.2
Examples of Data-Driven Marketing Objectives
Narrow goals are easier to communicate and therefore help mobilize
people in the organization, especially those who are skeptical. It
helps align various units, draw their commitment, and ensure
accountability. Focused goals also force marketers to think about the
most effective performance leverage and prioritize their effort on it.

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When marketers choose the objective with the biggest impact,
companies can get meaningful quick wins and hence early buy-in
from everyone.
By setting clear goals, the data-driven marketing initiative becomes a
measurable and accountable initiative (see 
Figure 8.2
). The insights
generated from data analysis will also be more actionable and lead to
specific marketing improvement efforts.