3 Signs Your Marketing Team is Focusing on the Wrong Data (And How to Fix It!)

As a fellow marketer, I’m sure you can agree with me that it’s important to have the right data and information in order to do our jobs, right? In fact, having access to the right data is important for any job.

However, having data simply isn’t enough; it has to be relevant to your company and the goals you’re trying to achieve. In fact, can you even set SMART goals without having good data?

In order to achieve the results you need to help propel your business, you need to be able to combine the right data with your actions.

While building out marketing campaigns and executing on them, data should guide every action your marketing team takes and every decision it makes.

If you’re doing it right, chances are you have a great understanding of how your audience is interacting with your company, and consequently, you’re probably seeing the results you want to see.

But if you’re doing it wrong, and you’re not focusing on the right data, you’re most likely experiencing the following three impediments.

1. Your team is not aligned on goals.

Oftentimes, if you don’t have clear, concise goals set, your entire team can be working towards different outcomes.

For example, your definition of success as a marketer can be completely different from a designer’s definition, which could be completely different from a copywriter’s definition.

Like I said before, if you don’t have the right data or don’t know what it is you should be focusing on, then your goal setting and strategy turns into a big assumption -- and assumptions don’t result in effective outcomes.

We all know that making something without the right data is frustrating, yet 76% of marketers don’t have the information they need to successfully complete a project before they start!

What’s more, if we know what the initial goals are, why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how our contributions will affect the outcomes, we could easily create a closed-loop approach, helping to better align the entire team on all projects.

2. You’re not seeing improvement in your metrics.

Data is all around us, and that’s both a good and a bad thing.

On one hand, it’s great to have a lot of data, because you have hard stats on your performance, but on the other hand, all of that information can quickly get overwhelming.

What data is the right data to pay attention to, and how do we use it? What do we apply it to?

If your team is working towards different goals (like mentioned above) or working off the wrong data, you’re not going to see improvements in your metrics.

In order to appropriately apply the metrics you collect, you need to first be able to easily identify what you need to track and focus on. This is determined by your goals, and if your metrics are not representative of your goals, you’re less likely to focus on improving the right ones.

3. Your company looks just like your competitors.

If you don’t have or follow the right data, you’re likely looking to your competitors for guidance, but just because your competitors are doing it doesn’t mean it’ll be effective.

Fact is your competitors may not have everything figured out, and you want to differentiate yourself -- not blend in and conform.

Your marketing campaigns or projects should be based on how your prospects and/or customers interact with YOU, not with your competitors or others in the industry.

Once you know your audience and are able to collect the right, customer-centric data from your target persona, you’ll be able to make more accurate iterations on your marketing assets and truly break away from the pack.

So, how can your team focus on the right data?

With all of the different types and forms of data out there, how can we efficiently and effectively define what we need to focus on in order to improve our marketing campaigns?

Luckily, Unbounce Co-Founder, Oli Gardner, has done all of the hard work in making this extremely easy for marketers.

His Data-Driven Design (3D) Process intricately outlines the 6 steps you and your team should take when planning on making informed changes to the digital marketing experiences you’re creating.

Contrary to the name of the framework, it’s not all about design! Rather, it’s about giving your team a process that will help them identify the right data for each of their strategic decisions in a variety of mediums.

Each of the steps is outlined below, but they are a bit technical. (Make sure to save your seat for this free webinar to learn about them more in-depth and get your hands on all of the tools mentioned!):

Step 1: Consult 3D Playbook

The 3D Playbook is an interactive table that lets you choose the page element you’re interested in optimizing or making better. Then, once you’ve made your decision, it automatically sorts through a bunch of data sources and tells you which ones you need to be focusing on.

Step 2: Collect Data

Collecting data is the most exciting part!

This step includes another interactive sheet that allows you to choose the type of data you gather. It then tells you what your sample size should be in order for you to make effective decisions, as well as some more information on why that sample size and data type is important.

Step 3: Make Observations

Once you begin receiving data, making observations is the most revealing part of the process.

It is highly suggested (pretty much mandatory) that you observe the data as an entire team. Not only will this help all team members develop empathy for the customer, but it will also help strengthen the bond of the team as a whole.

Again, there is also an interactive sheet for this part where you can choose the data type, give it an observation ID and description, and write down everyone’s notes. You’ll also give it a severity rating from 1-5, with 5 being the worst.

Step 4: Assign Micro Metrics

Your observations need corresponding solutions. As long as you can measure something, you’re able to optimize and improve it.

Marketers today tend to focus too much on conversion rate; you need to look deeper than that. By assigning micro metrics, you can properly measure the impact of every design decision you make.

Every observed pain point needs a corresponding solution. If you can measure it, you can optimize and improve it. Assigning micro metrics ensures you can measure the impact of every design decision you make in regards to on-page behavior.

For example, if you’re observing a form’s performance on one of your high-converting landing pages, it’s not effective to just record how many submissions it’s generated. Instead, record micro metrics such as the percentage of form errors, form abandons, fake email addresses, and professional business email addresses.

Once you identify your micro metrics, assign them to your observations so you can begin to use design to make them better!

Step 5: “Design Card” Mockups

Now that you have all of your observations, hypotheses, and micro metrics, get together as a team and have each member sketch 4 solutions, spending only one minute on each solution. (Remember, we’re ALL designers!)

Then, discuss the reasoning behind why each person sketched what they did, and give them to your designer to make into a more concrete solution.

Step 6: Test & Measure Micro Metrics

Now it’s time to actually make the changes and test them. By running on-page tests, you can accurately see if your design decisions are influencing the behavior of your visitors -- in both a positive and negative way.

Now what?

If you’ve identified that your team could definitely use some help in focusing on the right data to make improvements to your marketing strategies and on-page elements, you’ll want to dive a bit deeper into Oli’s Data-Driven Design (3D) Process.

On Tuesday, March 27th, Oli and IMPACT are joining forces for a free live webinar that will review how to use the 3D playbook, how to run multiple experiments to fuel your next project, why and how you should use micro metrics, and how to better collaborate as a team in order to produce successful digital experiences.

Space is limited, so reserve your seat today!