Top 5 Data-Driven Trends for Marketers in 2022

Trend research is becoming one of the essential tools for the competition of companies of any size, whether it is a multinational company or a micro-business. Understanding the trends that set the “rules of the game” on a global scale, the directions of market development, and the factors influencing consumer behavior allows brands to play ahead of the curve.

Thanks to the development of eCommerce, web analytics, CRM systems, marketers have more data about customers, which means that they have better and more authentic opportunities to convey information about the product/service and track the effectiveness of advertising. 

The only way to make sure that your marketing team is effective is data analysis, the implementation of data-driven marketing. Data-driven marketing reduces the risk of losing advertising revenue and spending time focusing on the wrong target market. Companies collect and analyze data about their customers to identify trends and patterns. This post will discuss the marketing predictions on where brands should prioritize their data efforts.

Customer Experience Is Your Focus Area

We all observe the transition from a market in which companies dictate the rules to the state where the clients decide which companies are worthy of their attention. If customers like interacting with the brand, they will continue to buy its products. Modern consumers are no longer satisfied with traditional experiences, and marketers are concerned about this area. They try to understand what customers do and why they do that.

The customer experience consists of many factors and affects the entire cycle of interaction between the consumer of a product/service and its supplier: from the moment of the first contact (for example, through advertising), the fact of purchase, and the period of use of the product/service. Therefore, all these stages require analysis and further optimizing the customer experience.

87% of business leaders tag customer experience as their top growth engine—the highest of any other growth area. However, without data, it is impossible to create a good customer experience, so brands are currently more focused on revenue and retention metrics.

Omnichannel Marketing

Omni-channel marketing is everywhere now. The omnichannel approach assumes that the brand uses various sales and marketing channels — and the customers can make purchases or communicate with the brand in any way convenient to them while saving the history of communications and sales. This strategy focuses on the clients; respectively, their loyalty is growing.

Now the number of contact points can reach ten or more: SMS, email newsletters, social networks, chatbots, messengers, callback services, company websites, applications, marketplaces, and more. The client needs to switch between channels without losing the history of communications with the brand – both online and offline.

You can leverage data-driven marketing for an omnichannel approach by bringing all consumer data together from different channels. Omnichannel marketing cannot fully work without analytics. Various platforms allow you to record all customer requests through all channels and combine their data in a profile. Collect data on online and offline conversions – they show where to focus and when to think about reducing the marketing channel in favor of another one that can bring more conversions.

Changing Roles and Responsibilities 

Any company is a single, integral system, an element of which is marketing. Marketing specialists need to understand what is going on outside the marketing department to get the most of emerging data-driven trends. Beyond promotions and advertising, they can and should influence company goals.

Marketing data alone is not enough anymore. Effective interaction between departments is no less important than teamwork in a team. For example, without CFO’s data on budgeting or the sales team’s data about inbound volume, the company cannot work as a single mechanism, and marketers may feel like an information vacuum.

On the other hand, marketers will bring a layer of human insight to understand what your audience is talking about right now. We live in a time when counting and analyzing customer behavior is no longer an unattainable dream. This is reality, and data-driven marketing is in trend. Usually, the duo of a marketer plus an analyst is already called data-driven marketing. The marketer consults with the analyst, requests deeper reports on cohorts and funnels, puts forward hypotheses, and more.

When it comes to social listening, Vista Social offers to build a deeper understanding of your audience with social listening tools. Track and analyze conversations around relevant topics to understand consumer sentiment and brand health.

Specialized Knowledge and Expertise

Like any other specialists, modern marketers should invest in their knowledge and expertise to stay competitive in the market. But, to be more precise, they should expand their knowledge with more relevant disciplines like artificial intelligence (AI), social listening, machine learning, and more.

For instance, AI will help automate communication campaigns, create a new, stronger brand connection with consumers, and ultimately create a hyper-personalized experience that evokes strong emotions. However, a side effect of this will be that the most talented and creative marketers only will survive in the profession.

AI technologies are the reality we live in right now. Leading brands in data-driven marketing already use some elements of AI and machine learning. This means the specialized expertise is a competitive advantage for a marketer to succeed.

Plan and Strategize Before Going All in on Data

Working with data, analytics, and other related elements of data-driven marketing are regularly included in the lists of the main trends for the year. Still, this tendency needs to be followed carefully. First, you should understand that data will come from all communication channels – social media, email, mobile devices, various data-related platforms. So just collecting a bunch of the company’s data in one place and expecting fantastic insights will not work. 

The whole process should be determined by a pre-made data analysis plan, which is compiled while developing the entire marketing research plan. And those who have a research and analysis plan increase the effectiveness of campaigns, better justify events and identify previously unnoticed patterns.

The company’s strategic analysis plans, goals, and objectives must be communicated in a clear and understandable form that does not allow incorrect interpretation. Thus, you ensure transparency, clarity, thoughtfulness, consistency, and responsibility of marketing actions.

Undoubtedly, the possibilities of an analytical approach in marketing are genuinely limitless. With Vista Social’s analytics, you will have the strategy set up to let you know what is effective and what is not.

Conclusion

In the modern economy, digital data has become a valuable resource and critical competitive advantage. Aggregating data about customers, potential audiences and constantly updating algorithms that can improve the accuracy of analytics and the quality of client integrations is perhaps one of the leading tasks of any company.

Data-driven marketing trends are not only a buzzword – it is a new direction in research and analytics. Every marketing campaign should reach its target audience strategically, using data as a guiding factor. According to experts, everyone will have to work with data sooner or later, so it is essential to adapt your brand to future realities. Master new knowledge, keep track of current trends and stay among the most in-demand companies.

Try Vista Social for free to reach your audience, engage your community, and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.