The Power of Social Media and Data Analysis

How can we use the power of social media and data analysis when building a marketing strategy? It might seem complicated, but once you understand it’s a really simple tool to use. Here are three ways you can use “big data” – reaching your target market, running split tests, and retargeting.

Reaching your target market.
The best way to find your target market is to put yourself out there and see who interacts with your content. Through free content marketing and offering as much value as you possibly can without expecting anything in return, you collect data on people that are most likely to be receptive to your products and services. This isn’t about collecting their emails and phone numbers at this stage, it’s more about exploring demographics, who your customers are and what they like to see in their feeds.

That’s why social media is so much more powerful than traditional marketing spaces like billboards or buses. This way, you won’t waste money showing yourself to people who don’t care.

The first layer of your strategy, finding your target market, is two-fold. Find out who is already most likely to engage with you by putting out loads of value and opportunities to interact, and also figure out who you would like to work with by creating a customer ‘avatar’, or your ideal client.

This stage is really about learning what works and what doesn’t so you can start to build stage two which is to run your split test.

Running a split test.
A split test is when you run the exact same ad to the same audience – save for one variable. For instance you may run the same ad to men and the same ad to women and see which works best. Or you might target the exact same audience and change the ad slightly to test if the audience likes a certain product image or video.

What this does is effectively learning who likes what so you can start to get a better return for your budget, and reach your buyers.

Retargeting.
The final, and most powerful way you can use data is retargeting. You’ve probably already experienced this – you looked at a pair of boots online and all of a sudden, those boots are showing up everywhere!

Take this example – your partner pops the question and you start researching weddings. As you can imagine you start being followed around the internet by wedding photographers, venues, all of it! Personally, I love seeing it because I know that those businesses are crushing their ad campaigns getting in front of the right people.

So retargeting like this is the result of tracking codes embedded into websites, little bits of code written into a landing page that tells the advertiser that you’ve been to that page. Because once you get someone to your page, you don’t want to let them go.

It all starts by planting little seeds. Whether you’re on social media or meeting people face to face the key is to build relationships with your client. Get to know them, listen to what they really want – and data analysis will show you what they want.

Create a marketing strategy that builds trust by giving value and not asking for anything in return too soon, because you ARE getting something in return. You’re learning what works and what doesn’t work until there’s nothing left for your customer to do but buy from you because you’ve taken the time to get to know them.

Plant those seeds with free content, a few videos, even some free offers. Once customers show interest in you, don’t let them down. Be ever present, keep giving until one day they’re ready to take that trust to the next level and purchase from you. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it only takes days, but be patient and respect where your client is in the process.

The SWISH Sales Method will help walk you through these three components in greater detail, and offer more detailed strategies for split testing and finding your target market. To learn more about the SWISH methodology, read about our sales training, sales coaching, and sales courses. No matter if you are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast or anywhere in Australia we are able to assist in providing the most innovative ethical sales training.