Michael Epps Utley 
Is your marketing program working?
Are you sure?
This article explains some of the most common small business marketing data errors and how to prevent them.
1. Don’t Only Measure Performance Against Near-Term Goals
Marketing is most effective when it delivers value over the short-, medium- and long-term.
Sure, it’s great to make a quick sale, but it’s even better to make another one—and maybe even get a referral or recommendation.
Of course, you must meet immediate monthly and quarterly revenue goals. At the same time, you want to build long-term relationships with prospects and customers who might buy something in the future. There’s also value in staying connected with people who may never purchase your products and services but influence other consumers.
It comes down to balancing how you set goals. Don’t limit yourself to always focusing on delivering immediate sales through short-term advertising campaigns. Add in efforts that could pay off over the long term, like content marketing, which will help keep your brand at the forefront of people’s minds when it’s time to buy something in the future or recommend your company when opportunities arise.
2. Don’t Monitor Too Many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
A lot of data isn’t always better data.
Monitoring a lot of data often results in confusion, making it difficult to identify opportunities and issues (too much noise and not enough signal).
Always ask yourself: What is the purpose of my marketing?
Once you understand the purpose of your promotional efforts, you can identify the related KPIs that help prove you’re on track to reaching your goals.
It’s typically wise to select two KPIs: one related to efficiency and one for effectiveness.
For instance, when you do paid marketing, the most crucial effectiveness KPI is typically revenue or profit. The efficiency KPI for this type of marketing is usually the cost per order. Focus your attention on these two key performance indicators. When you identify an issue, you can dig deeper into the metrics supporting them to figure out what’s happening.
3. Don’t Waste Time and Effort on Useless Data
Decades ago, it was challenging to access marketing data, so having more to back your promotional efforts was considered a good thing.
Now, we have more data than anyone can process and understand. Today, the good thing is to know which data to ignore.
For instance, impressions are often the number one piece of data in many marketing reports. Do you need to track it? Probably not. In most cases, it’s useless. The underlying data, such as clicks, click-through rate, and cost-per-click, prove marketing success (or lack of it).
Be smart and only track things that help you understand which aspects of marketing are working and which aren’t.
4. Don’t Prioritize Psychographics and Demographics Over Intent
Is your small business focused on forcing the same pool of prospects down a sales funnel to close a deal?
The issue: No one today behaves in a way that follows the traditional funnel.
The old-school funnel model was built on personas based on demographics and psychographics . While the personas are critical to understanding who you’re selling to, they don’t universally address why those people may want to buy from you.
That’s where consumer intent comes in.
Today, business owners and marketers can identify intent by tracking a consumer’s online behavior. Monitoring what messages people respond to in your marketing campaigns, tracking the content they view on your site, and following their path through your products and services can help you—or your automated marketing systems—understand their intent and offer visitors the best options for them.
This intent-focused approach is a far more personalized—and effective—approach to marketing than forcing everyone through the same sales funnel.
5. Don’t Shy Away From Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Analytics
It’s natural to want to avoid AI in marketing after some recent blowups.
However, the machine-learning solutions built into marketing analytics tools make it much easier to identify issues and opportunities related to your marketing efforts. Instead of searching through reams of data, you can order reports that deliver actionable insights.
If you log into most marketing tools like Google Analytics, there’s usually a report called something like “Intelligence” that delivers instant valuable information. It helps identify hidden things inside your data and makes them clear and visible. Of course, when it comes to artificial intelligence, it is critical to double-check things.
In the end, AI can be flawed (the hope is that it only gets better), but it can point you in directions that improve your marketing efforts.
Common Marketing Data Mistakes: The Final Word
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when monitoring and evaluating marketing data. The key is to take a short-, medium-, and long-term approach to data-driven marketing, track the right KPIs and metrics, and leverage the power of artificial intelligence to improve your efforts. Focusing on the right things will help you avoid common data mistakes while taking your marketing efforts to the ultimate level.
