We have all heard the term “big data” and understand digital technologies are increasing the amount of customer information that marketing and sales teams can tap into with the right tools and techniques. But a plethora of information is only useful when companies understand what data points are relevant and how to use the findings to drive conversion. It’s just like the old adage says: quality over quantity.

Therefore, the question should be: Do you know if your data is high-quality?

Here are a few tips that can help ensure the information being gathered, reported, and optimized by marketing is pertinent to your campaigns and making your company some money!

1. Fish With a Wide Net

Yes, I did just tell you that it isn’t how many data points you collect, it’s the relevancy of the information. But that doesn’t mean you should focus on a very narrow channel of customer information sourcing. A recent study from Ad Age and Google revealed 59.2% of brand marketers are able to focus more on engagement with customers when their measurement and metrics are of high-quality.

Today’s marketing landscape is a hodge-podge of online, mobile, and offline channels blurring together throughout the sales cycle. Customers are jumping from one device, channel, or platform to the next as they investigate a company, review products or services, and (eventually) evaluate purchasing options.

To fully understand the factors influencing the decision-making process throughout the customer journey, there must be data collection at each stage across several platforms. This means marketers should be collecting phone call data, email statistics, website activity, and other interactions equally to identify trends in conversions and loyalty.

2. Guarantee Accuracy

A rule of thumb for data is that accuracy is of the utmost importance. You can showcase the prettiest, most detailed graphs, charts, and infographics to the C-suite, but the presentation will have zero impact on the decision-makers if the data points are wrong.

Because marketing technology is generating such large volumes of data on customer activity each day, there must be tools in place to ensure the information is accurate, relevant, and up-to-date. Customer information is not only rolling in continuously, but it is also ripening, spoiling, and losing its value just as fast. The last thing you want to do is base an entire marketing campaign around a bowl of over-ripe tomatoes.

Many marketing automation and analytics technologies provide resources to help teams identify outdated information and clean through databases quickly and efficiently. For example, if you are using dynamic phone numbers to track the lead source of inbound calls, be sure to work with a provider that offers number cleansing services. Using an advanced aging and scrubbing algorithm, companies can ensure the dynamic numbers are effective at generating the most accurate data to monitor customer behaviors.

3. Analyze in Real Time

Another aspect of accurate data is ensuring the information is being analyzed and optimized in the moment, when actionable insight can have its greatest impact on conversions. The collection of customer data must be an on-going process across multiple channels with continual oversight to ensure high-quality results..

Likewise, the reporting and analysis of data must also be constant function so the insights generated are fresh, and C-suite executives have the best information available to aid in decision-making. It will be of little help to present business leaders with last month’s statistics when this month’s numbers indicate a new trend in customer preferences.

Be sure to set up real-time reporting tools with marketing automation solutions to ensure as the data comes rolling in, the figures are being organized and evaluated on-the-spot for efficient results. Companies that take full advantage of real-time analytics are able to gain a competitive edge in messaging and customer engagement based on the updated reports.

4. Connect the Dots

You have planted seeds throughout a complex, diverse sales process across several marketing channels. You have implemented tools to ensure the information collected is up-to-date, and you have started to report on the findings as they are gathered. Now it is time to bring the data points together and identify the big-picture patterns and trends that can be translated into actionable insight.

My goodness, those were a lot of marketing buzzwords! But each step in the data collection, reporting, and analysis process is vital to monitoring the market and pinpointing areas throughout a customer’s journey where improvements should be made to increase conversions.

Without tools to bring the disparate data together and create integrated reports, customer information from different channels and platforms will continue to float around without any context to support its value to the decision-making process. When marketing automation solutions are tied together with advanced integrations and APIs, data housed in each tool can be merged and analyzed to create a more complete picture of marketing activity, performance outcomes, customer decisions, and most importantly: conversions!

In conclusion, customer data should be:

  • Diverse
  • Accurate
  • Up-to-date
  • Integrated

Otherwise you are just wasting your time with the wrong numbers. And no one likes math enough to justify that!

To learn more about the importance of collecting and analyzing call data in a multichannel marketing mix, check out our “Definitive Guide to Voice-Based Marketing Automation.”