You have spent hours collecting millions upon millions of rows of marketing data. So now what? Do you hand it all off and say “have fun”? (Known in my world as a data dump — yes we keep it classy.) Absolutely not! Why go through all the trouble of collecting marketing data and not have any of your own fun with it? (In my world, that’s known as getting your geek on.)
You don’t have to feel overwhelmed and lost in the copious amount of data you have — because we have answers about what to do next.
What is data mining?
We all know data is everywhere. There is data on our phone and data on our watches. Netflix collects data and Facebook has its own algorithm. Data, data, data! We can collect as much data as we can get our hands on, but how we use it is key.
So how do you get the data to work for you? Two words: data mining. Data mining is a way to analyze and look for trends or patterns within the data.
But that begs a second question: How do you mine the millions of rows of marketing data? With data mining tools of course!
Tools for data mining
Tools for data mining are abundant. The tools are used to clean the data because data is never perfect. A tool that can manipulate, clean, and summarize the data is essential. This can be done in Excel, or there are also coding languages that can do this such as Python, R, or SQL. With a quick Google search, you can also find several data mining tools to purchase.
Once the data is clean and ready to use, visualization is key. Some may be able to look at a table of numbers and see patterns, while others need to visualize these patterns. Patterns can be seen with area charts, bar charts, and histograms, but please avoid pie charts (nothing good comes from a pie chart). Most of the tools mentioned above can visualize these patterns for you, but there are also tools made specifically for visualization, such as Domo, Datorama, or Tableau.
By using a data mining tool, you are in control of the data and able to make sense of it.
Looking for trends or patterns within the data can help us get ahead of a marketing strategy. Or, we can reallocate budget if we are seeing poor performance with our marketing efforts.
Applying data mining to your marketing strategy
After the data is cleaned and you have created the visualizations that tell the story, you still have work to do. Namely, applying the patterns and trends to your marketing strategy.
It’s the answer to all of your “what’s next” questions. You can use what you have found within your marketing data and apply it to your marketing strategies. Share what trends you have been seeing, and determine how it does or does not support marketing efforts. You can decipher if you are seeing a shift in customer behavior due to a specific marketing effort.
Sharing this information with the subject matter experts (SMEs) is crucial. They know the backend of their strategies and will be able to understand the “why” related to the patterns or trends. They will also be able to explain the anomaly you see within the data or understand the change in customer’s behavior.
Remember, mine your marketing data, analyze, and visualize. If you need help, reach out to us at Two Rivers Marketing.
By Two Rivers Marketing
By Minda Kuckuck