When marketing is done, it’s not a matter of randomly coming up with campaigns out of the blue. It requires a strategy that works best when driven by supporting data. The same is true if you intend to do Facebook marketing.
Facebook has proven that it has evolved from a mere social networking platform, but to an effective marketing platform as well. This is not only because of the large user base that Facebook has, but also because of the multiple tools that are geared to help make marketing in it more systematic, and more capable of achieving your goals. With that, data-driven Facebook marketing can help you achieve your desired results more efficiently.
What is data-driven marketing?
Data-driven marketing is making use of relevant data to craft winning marketing strategies. Doing data-driven marketing involves the collection of data from your marketing campaigns, analyzing them, and using them to aid the creation of better campaigns in the future.
The data you’ll collect not only involves the demographics of your target market but also how they reacted to your previous campaigns so that you will know how you will design your new marketing campaigns.
When done correctly, data-driven marketing can allow you to improve your lead generation, and ultimately, your conversions.
Why you need a data-driven approach in your marketing strategy?
By not adopting a data-driven approach to marketing, you are basically just coming up with a random marketing campaign with no proof that it will work for your audience. It’s like putting all your time and effort in coming up with a campaign and hoping that it works. Without data, you are just doing trial and error, which can be very wasteful of your resources.
In order to be more efficient, and in order for you to better secure your potential to meet your marketing goals, it is recommended that you adopt data-driven marketing today.
Creating an effective data-driven Facebook campaign
Citing all the benefits that data-driven marketing can do, you should have realized how important it is that you make use of data to drive all of your campaigns, including those coursed through Facebook. The following are how you can effectively make use of your data to craft your Facebook campaigns:
First things first, determine what your goals are
Just as in all your business processes, it is essential that you start with a plan. And the usual core of the plan is to identify what your goals are for what you are about to do. For your data-driven Facebook marketing campaign, it is essential that you determine what you would like to achieve so that you can focus your strategies on meeting such a goal. Usual goals for Facebook marketing campaigns include improving brand awareness, increasing followers, driving traffic to your site, and of course, generating sales.
Another reason for doing this is to allow you to categorize your data as to what are essential, and what are not. Being able to do this allows you to filter your data, and to exclude those which won’t help you achieve your goals. If the needed data is not yet available, it at least allows you to set which ones you have to prioritize in collecting.
Collect relevant data
The next step in creating your data-driven Facebook marketing campaign is collecting relevant data. Understanding which data you need to use for your campaign, you can free yourself from the need to extract information that you won’t need at the moment. Your data may come from previous campaigns, or from gathering fresh ones.
Make sure that you prioritize the needed data. If you have time, you may also be able to allocate time for data that you may be able to use in the future, but if you have time constraints, it is best if you focus on what’s needed at the moment. It is also best to equip your campaigns with the ability to collect data that may be useful in the future.
Keep your eyes on your niche
Even before you craft your campaign, you should have already identified your target market. This is because your product or service offerings should be geared toward them. Your campaign should then be focused on them as well. Don’t waste your efforts trying to win the hearts of customers outside your target market. If it happens, it happens, but don’t focus energy on achieving that.
Install Facebook Pixel
Facebook Pixel is an analytics tool that can help determine how effective your Facebook campaigns are. Specifically, it tracks the activity of users who were directed to your site by your Facebook ads. With that in mind, make sure that you have Facebook Pixel installed on your site so that you will be able to analyze how your Facebook campaigns are working. It also allows you to get behavioral data, which can greatly help you in crafting more effective Facebook campaigns.
Evaluate gathered data, then take action
With your collected data, you are now able to craft campaigns that correspond to what the numbers are showing. Please take note that your data do not work individually – there are correlations that are present so make sure that you study your data intensively and see relevant patterns and causalities that you may be able to tap in your favor.
The key is to understand your data, and putting these data into action so that you will have a campaign that will bring about the results you have for it. Not all data will be positive so make sure that you consider how you can reverse that too.
Continuously track and measure
Finally, with the understanding that data is crucial for your future campaigns, make sure that you continue to track and measure across all your channels. There are multiple tools available that can help you out in collecting and analyzing relevant data which you can then use to boost your campaigns. Use them to your advantage and your marketing initiatives will be more rewarding.
See the difference with data-driven Facebook marketing
Facebook marketing is indeed one of the most effective marketing strategies to date. Infusing a data-driven approach will make it even more effective, allowing you to achieve targeted goals. Use this guide to help you transform your Facebook marketing campaigns to data-driven wonders that will bring your brand forward, and ready to face the future of marketing.
About the Author — Kevin Urrutia is the founder of Voy Media, a Facebook Advertising Agency based in New York. He aids businesses in effectively improving sales and conversion through the effective utilization of Facebook advertising. Voy Media is an expert in determining the best approach, coming up with a unique solution for each client.