Do you need a data strategy? (Of course you do)

By know you have probably read numerous blog posts about big data and even downloaded a few white papers. You can hire a data scientist and invest in technology such as data management platforms to unify your databases, but neither will be effective if you don’t have a strategy in place to organize, govern, analyze and deploy your data. So if you are answering the above question with a resounding “Yes!” then there is great news: you are starting in the right place!

Literally and figuratively, before building, renovating or expanding your data (warehouse) you need to have a solid foundation in place. Your foundation will yield the assets you will store in your data platform and leverage for growing both your audience and revenue streams. To effectively leverage your data you need to know how it is organized and structured (or unstructured) so you know what data you currently have available, plus that which you are missing and wish to collect moving forward.

A SOLID AUDIENCE GROWTH STRATEGY: As a 21st century media company your core is built on delivering content to your audience, the same as it has always been. But today you are no longer the dominate source of news and information, so publishing something for everyone is a failing strategy. An audience growth strategy starts with understanding your market opportunity and narrowing your focus to your target audience. From there you will fine-tune your comprehensive content plan (what content you will produce and what distribution channels you will market your content on). Here are three traditional marketing tools that will help you align your approach. 

1.   Market Analysis. This is the top of your audience funnel. From a strategic standpoint, to grow your audience you want to know where your opportunity exists. At this stage you are not looking at the audience you have, but the audience available to you. A typical market analysis features reporting options such as demographics, consumer and lifestyle information, census data and more.

2.   Statistically Valid Readership Study. A reputable research firm will help you develop a study that will provide insights into what your current readership looks like. Are you over performing or underperforming to the goals you have established in review of your market? 

3.   Surveys: These are effective and inexpensive options to gain directional insights to fuel your content strategy that supports audience growth. You should put in place an ongoing strategy using surveys to get continual feedback from your customers.

WHO IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

Above are tools and information you likely already have, but perhaps they need a refresh or you haven’t looked at the data in a while. The key point is that this is the data you start using to help you leverage the data available to you today. Use these tools to develop your target audience personas — the fictional characters that describe your current and prospective audience. At this stage you align your editorial and sales strategies to build and expand your business. Are you writing content for the folks you wish to serve? Are advertisers telling you these are the folks they want doing business with them? When you are in alignment here, you are ready for the final phase of building your foundation.

DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY?

Put simply, as a media company you are in the business of marketing the content you produce to the audience you wish to reach. You also are selling marketing services to the customers you are trying to connect to your readers. In today’s world you need a marketing technology stack that collects and/or uses data to effectively and efficiently market your goods and services. Here is a rundown of the key primary pieces you need in place, and the capabilities each should have.

•   Email marketing platform. You might have multiple tools you use here based on additional features. 

Platforms such as Second Street Media offer contests and promotions as their core feature to grow revenue and build audience profiles based on engagement history and contest/promotions interactions. 

Others use tracking pixels to follow online activity across channels, such as email, websites, etc. These tools learn intent based on the content individuals read and build unique profiles of each individual, which you then pull into audience segments. Additional features such as light boxes are used to promote database growth and fill in the holes in your database.

Regardless of the platform(s) you use, the key is to review the capabilities of each as you align your data acquisition efforts. Does your current platform allow you to collect and build additional data points per user — not only demographic but also psychographic? Here are the core features you should have with your email marketing platform:

o   Personalization: Today’s consumers are looking for personalized experiences, so this is a top feature you must have. Adding personalization tokens to emails allows you to pull unique attributes about the individual into the copy of the email. The basics start with a user’s name, and as you get more personalized you might include additional data points such as account number, last four digits of a credit card, etc.

o   Automation: Automation starts with simple features such as timed deliveries and leads to more sophisticated deliveries based on action triggers. Sophisticated automation platforms allow you to segment your database based on certain attributes that allow automation to kick in and deliver personalized messages to help your user through their reader or buyer journey with your company.

o   Templates: Built-in templates allow you to select from a variety of layouts and styles that best match your content to your audience. Look for solutions that have simple drag-and-drop features.

o   Mobile-friendly: Readers are on the go and have access to your content 24/7, and chances are they are reading it on their mobile device. 

o   Analytics: The more analytics your platform provides, the better armed you become to learn from successes and failures from campaigns so you can make adjustments in future communications. 

•   Social Media Marketing/Management: Social media platforms are content distribution channels. You shouldn’t have a Facebook plan, but rather a plan for how to use Facebook to align with your target audience strategy. Using a social media management platform streamlines your efforts across all channels. Key features include platform integration, social media monitoring and listening, scheduling, engagement, and analytics.

•   Content Management System (CMS): You likely have your CMS of choice in place. To prepare for your data strategy, make sure this system can easily integrate into the other pieces of your tech stack. If you are assessing your CMS, look for ready-to-use connections, such as API, that will allow you to easily integrate with your other tools and significantly decrease development costs.

•   Analytic Tools: Google Analytics is the standard and should absolutely be used by all media companies, but don’t ignore other tools that can enhance and go beyond what Google Analytics provides.

•   Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Do all your sales activities currently reside on notepads or files on individuals computers? If so, what data can you leverage to grow your customer base? Even the most basic, low-cost CRM options on the market today allow you to organize your sales pipeline activity and collect data points about your customer interactions. 

Having the right target audience strategy and marketing stack will allow you to move forward with a comprehensive data strategy, which will align all your data silos of customer information into a single customer view. At this point you are ready to understand how your data strategy will build and grow your business, and what additional investments you need to make for the future. But don’t worry, at this point you have minimized the risk of this investment and have the right structure in place to support your growth objectives.