Virtual coffee ☕️: Are you really data-driven?

In this edition of Virtual Coffee ☕️, we invited two marketing experts: Gonzalo Rodriguez Fierro, Marketing Manager at Coca-Cola Company Mexico, and Gonzalo Lomana, Sales Machines Builder at B2B SaaS Startups, to discuss data-driven marketing, or perhaps more accurately stated "insight-driven" marketing.

What is the importance of being data-driven in marketing?

Marketing teams use data to inform decisions when adopting a data-driven mindset. If you want to learn more about data-driven marketing, check out our article: “Data-driven marketing and marketing data insights”.

Although data analysis is a critical component of marketing and sales roles, these roles are frequently less analytical, which is why these professionals have a tendency to search for information about how to manage data or tips on how to improve their data analysis 🧐.

For now, let’s focus on marketing teams. Data is now becoming more and more important. The scalability of many businesses has increased, according to sales expert Gonzalo de Lomana, thanks to data. These businesses now require repeatable processes in sales; having excellent salespeople is no longer necessary. Instead, processes should be standardized using data and repeated over time.

The scalability of many businesses has increased thanks to data - Gonzalo de Lomana.

According to Gonzalo Rodriguez, a lot of people enter the marketing field because they may not be particularly analytical, but they soon learn that marketing is impossible without data and that it is impossible to run successful campaigns without properly analyzing the data of your audience, campaign performance, etc.📊

Data-driven marketers use analytics to analyze customer data, their preferences, and customer behaviors to create more effective campaigns. Marketers are also able to use analytics to gain insights into customer behavior, trends in the market, and market segments. By analyzing customer data, marketers can create campaigns that are more effective at reaching and engaging their target audience.

The first step in setting goals for your business is to be data-driven. You can direct the direction your brand will take by starting with the information provided by your market and the actions of your current and potential customers.

Analyzing the data and trends allows you to identify opportunities, as well as any threats or weaknesses. With this knowledge in hand, you can then establish specific, measurable goals that are attainable and that ultimately set the goals for reaching long-term objectives.

When setting your goals, you should consider all perspectives and points: financial budgets, customer experience, operations, and product development factors.

How can we go from being data-driven to insight-driven?💎

First, let’s highlight some steps you can take to transform data into insights:

🔍 Develop an understanding of your data. Take the time to explore and investigate all available data sources to determine what insights they may provide.

📌 Identify business objectives and questions you want to be answered by the data. This will help you focus on the data that is most useful.

📈 Analyze your data and identify patterns and trends. Use data visualization and other analytic methods to get a deeper understanding of the data.

✒️ Develop a hypothesis and test it. Test your assumptions and refine your understanding of the data and look for new insights.

⛏ Apply insights to the business. Make sure you use data insights to inform decision-making, processes, and operations.

🔔 Monitor and track with tools like Gretel to get notified when something goes wrong, so you can address it quickly.

Several businesses use a data-driven process that incorporates data analysis to manage objectives and make choices.

An insight-driven process takes a step further, stating that it is not only required to evaluate data but also to transform it into digestible information capsules that can be used throughout our organization. This allows us to make better-informed decisions, based on the data, to increase profitability and efficiency while maintaining a competitive advantage. In this way, insight-driven businesses are able to improve their operations and remain competitive in their respective markets.

Gonzalo Rodriguez adds that with Coca-Cola, for example, you have clear statistics on what you sell or don't sell your attrition rate, and so on. Understanding why we attained the objective and exploring what is occurring with this data is required to be insight-driven and transform the data into actionable information.

Understanding why we attained the objective and exploring what is occurring with this data is required to be insight-driven - Gonzalo Rodriguez.

Gonzalo de Lomana explains that in sales, it is common to transition not just from data-driven to insights-driven, but also the other way around. Sometimes they have insights, they know something is going on, and these insights drive them to examine particular facts in order to figure out ways to back up their assertions with evidence.

What kinds of initiatives do you run to convert data into action?

Gonzalo de Lomana, a sales expert, says that they run campaigns to measure 2 things:

• Average ticket: sales per customer on average.
• Sales or conversion, which is obviously really important. In fact, it’s critical.

However, it's not the data that interests him; it's whose firm buys the most, what sort of profile it has, which channel converts the most... and from there, he analyzes three things:

• Target market: audiences
• Buyer persona: person or profile within the company.
• Source or channel: how many conversions come from the respective channels, and where is the best ratio of these conversions…

After successfully using the findings within the data, they may then launch advertisements for each channel, user, and market.

Gonzalo Rodriguez adds that in marketing departments, there are marketing profiles that are more in charge of creating these insights and then profiles that are more specialists in looking at the market and evaluating data. In marketing, we frequently have to analyze:

• The external information recapped from the market: how their consumer interacts, questionnaires, relationships, opinions…
• The internal data from the company: how much is sold, where it sells the most, etc.

With both internal and external information, as well as quantitative and qualitative analysis, you can start thinking about what insights you need to generate to make your company move in the right direction.

It is fascinating to observe how, regardless of whether the firm is large or small or whether it is sales or marketing, both reinforce the concept that data should serve to enhance your business. Data serves to know where you are, where you need to improve, and where you are heading.

How can you validate, in an initial phase, some marketing and sales ideas?

The mom test is a book by Rob Fitzpatrick that says that if you have a great idea, you should first verify it to see whether it is actually great or if you are asking the wrong questions and your market is simply telling you what you want to hear.

If you already have customers, it is essential to talk to them and validate three aspects:

• Why did you buy from me?
• What fears did you have when you bought from me?
• Why are you still a customer?

This allows us to be clear about our value proposition, which we must then evaluate across several channels. Gonzalo suggests using LinkedIn or other social networking platforms, making direct phone calls or cold calling to test how it works, and ultimately experimenting with automation.

What platforms do you use on a daily basis to analyze data?

Gonzalo de Lomana states that they utilize their CRM, and personally, I recommend HubSpot or Pipedrive for startups. They are quite simple to use and allow you to create reports to make better decisions with your data.

Coca-Cola is a much larger firm, so it is more difficult to look at it unilaterally, as each department may very well use different platforms. They utilize an MVP approach, which is also well-known among startups. They perform little tests that they validate in particular markets with certain people, and if it works, they export it to the rest of the consumers.

In closing, Gonzalo from Coca-Cola emphasizes the value of data in understanding how to utilize it not just once, but to export it and recognize when something works for you, why it worked, and repeat it to determine whether it was a correct test or not. Once you've exported this test, double-check that the results are what you expected, and go through it in depth.

“Don’t be shy to ask others, and don’t be afraid of what you can’t understand. Having access to data is actually a superpower, and only a few people have it.” - Inés from Gretel.

Gonzalo points out that anyone can become an expert in data and how it relates to the world around us. All it requires is practice, the right resources, and a willingness to learn. With the right mindset and dedication, you can become an expert in data and ultimately be more empowered to make more informed decisions.