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If you’re pulling your hair out because your marketing campaigns aren’t doing as well as you hoped they would, it’s time to consider the reasons why you’re struggling.

There’s a reason why Big Data is a hot buzzword right now: data can be tremendously useful in helping you create marketing campaigns that do hit the mark. It tells you what your customers like and don’t like, and tell you which of your campaigns are doing well, and which are falling flat. If you look closely enough, data will tell you exactly what’s wrong with your campaign, and guide you to making the right improvements to get better results.

What Customers Tell You

You might think, customers aren’t telling me anything about this campaign! They’re not even opening our emails! but there’s still valuable information in what they’re not doing. For example: if you noticed you had a particularly low open rate on an email, it’s probably due to one of two factors: the subject line wasn’t appealing, or you sent it at the wrong time of day. Oh, or you send so many emails, people are feeling inundated. These are all easy fixes, and can instantly improve your open rates.

If you get a high number of unsubscribes on a particular email, the messaging was off for your audience. Didn’t get clicks to your site? Same problem. Pay special attention to the copy you use inside your emails.

But this extends beyond email campaigns: have your social media numbers slowed? Are you getting fewer shares, clicks, and likes? Take a look at your social stream in its entirety. You might find that you’re putting out nothing but retweets or self-promotional content, in which case, you’re turning off followers. Work to diversify your shares, and keep your customer at the front of your mind when crafting social media messages.

How to Listen to Your Customers

With so many tools available to keep track of marketing data, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be keeping track. If you’re keeping detailed records in your CRM, this is a great place to start to measure marketing data to improve your campaigns.

Insightly Reports are a wonderful asset to help you understand why sales aren’t closing. It might tie back to marketing. If, for example, you’re sending new prospects a free download and you see a high number of unsubscribes, you know that there’s something broken at that point in the sales funnel. You can then take a look at the download, make sure it’s appropriately targeting your leads, review the email copy and make sure it’s up to snuff, then try again. You may find that you need to further break your prospects down into smaller groups so that you can send even more highly-targeted content and campaigns.

As you start to see results based on the tweaks you make, use this information to color future campaigns. If you know your audience peters out after 8 emails, only send 7. Target where each group is in the buying cycle, and always pay attention to customer feedback. It is, by far, your best ammunition in the marketing game.

About the sponsor:

Insightly was designed as a simple to use yet powerful Web-based CRM system for small businesses. With integrations to widely used applications such as Google Apps, Office 365, Mail Chimp, and Dropbox, Insightly CRM keeps you connected to the right information at the right time—including contacts, sales information, project activities, and more. Because we handle all of the technical issues like server upgrades and security fixes, you can focus on growing sales, not maintaining an IT support staff. Insightly CRM helps you concentrate on what matters most, running your business.