Leveraging Data Insights From External Sources: The Missing Chip To A Successful Marketing Strategy

Marketing has been around for longer than you think. Strategies have helped businesses grow for years, and with the inception of digital marketing and new technologies, the marketing community only seems to get bigger and bigger. Digitization and big data tools have helped brands tap into data pools to better understand the market and customer needs.

Simply put, data procured by market researchers using qualitative, quantitative, or semiotic techniques are used to realize undiscovered patterns in customer behaviour. These insights rely on the gut instincts of marketers and help understand the potential for further success with marketing strategies and campaigns.

Let us delve deep into understanding the two different types of data insights.

Internal Data Insights

It’s 2022, and marketers have an array of channels to execute their marketing strategies on. But how much can they create before ideas become monotonous? Marketers who are constantly looking for fresh ideas and techniques for a successful marketing campaign often bank on data insights procured by a brand internally.

In simple words, internal data is information a brand collects over the years through its campaigns and operations. It is a mix of facts, figures, sales metrics, trends, survey reports, cash reports, customer insights, and more.

Brands have relied on internal data insights for years because they are more exclusive and cater to the niche they want to market to.

However, is there another way to better the success of your marketing campaign?

External Data Insights

Data procured from third-party sources, including the market, customers, and competitors, are external. This data pool includes statistics from research, surveys, questionnaires, and customer feedback. While internal data is exclusive, external information is often available to the public.

Brands may argue that using insights from external data sources lack exclusivity; however, in today’s age, external data fuels the success of your marketing campaign.

Most financial, retail, health care, logistics, technology, and public sector organisations are now using external data to understand customer needs and maximize profits on their campaigns.

In a 2017 survey, Forrester reported that 92% of data professionals said that their brands need to mine on external data sources, while 52% of employees said their firms plan to increase their budget on it.

Now that we’ve understood what external data insights are, let us know why it is essential.

To Know Your Customer Better

Internal data insights are an excellent way for brands to capitalize on past campaigns and products. However, External Data insights help you navigate the market of tomorrow. Using data from external sources allows you to determine the future of your marketing campaign.

One of the best uses of external data insights is to know your customer and create a long-lasting connection with them. Customers often have shorter attention spans, leaving them uninterested in long boring surveys that brands initiate. With external data resources, companies only require basic information, which fuels the process of collecting data suited for your customer.

Not only does this save time, but it also helps create better insights for marketers. With this, they can understand buying patterns and market trends that guarantee success in their marketing campaign.

Practice Real-Time Predictions

As brands in a fast-paced market, you always want to know what your competitor is up to. You want to create strategies and campaigns that are out of the box and offer your customers the best. However, to do so, it is crucial to study the reality of the market around you.

How does it impact your customers if a competitor’s product performs better? Using external data insights helps brands predict profitable avenues. In addition, with Web 3.0, companies have new channels like social media and artificial intelligence to tap into and procure data from.

Social media analytics prove to be an excellent portal for external data, helping a market understand customers, current marketing condition, the competitive landscape, and how they can do better in their niche.

Handle With Care

While knowing how to leverage external data insights is essential, learning how to use this data with care is crucial. External information is often available for almost anyone to access and use. However, companies have to assess privacy policies and inaccuracy of data.

Data needs to be collected ethically and be vetted correctly before usage. The data you use to increase the effectiveness of your campaign ultimately impacts your target audience. If the information is inaccurate, procured illegally, or not analyzed correctly, not only does it fail to promote your vision, but it severs the connection between you and your customers.

A survey by Deloitte shows how companies have managed to tap into external data sources:

Source: Deloitte Analysis

If you are new to the external data ecosystem, here is an easy understanding of how this data provides insights by the Gartner Group:

Simple data services: Here information is collected by data brokers from multiple sources and conditioned. This data is used as an additional input in the decision-making process.

Smart data services: In this case, data collected is accentuated using analytics and calculations. The results offered are used in services from marketing data providers and credit rating agencies.

Adaptive data services: On particular analytical requests, customers submit data which is then combined with information from other sources.

The New Data Age

Using external data is excellent when you have a centralized strategy in place. External data on its own is robust; but when combined with internal data, it can provide meaningful insights. Today, companies are under immense pressure to outperform their competitors and be masters at innovation. This is only possible if they understand their market and audience. And the best way to do this is by mining data and studying it. Effective use of external data insights now seems to be at the forefront of a successful marketing campaign.

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