Gain insights to improve Marketing ROI

We are all awash in data and information, yet according to McKinsey, only 10 percent of marketers currently use insights to improve performance. You might argue that you are doing just fine with your marketing without such insights, and as such it really doesn’t matter, but I beg to differ. In this blog, I’ll share why insights gained through marketing automation are key to achieving better ROI and how you can go about doing so.

Pareto Principle

You’ve undoubtedly heard of the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule.  While it may not apply in the exact proportion to marketing, from the generally proven applicability of this rule, we can surmise that if you collect a hundred leads, roughly 20 of those would truly be worth pursuing. Of course, you could pursue all of them to figure out which 20 percent are valuable. Or you can utilize insights available to you. By using the insights, you can more quickly identify and target the 20 percent that truly matters and spend fewer resources chasing the 80 percent that don’t.

Connectedness yields better insights

According to CEB, 57 percent of B2B purchasing decisions are made before speaking to a salesperson. In other words, people are doing a lot of research online and looking at a lot of sources, so understanding and managing this overall interaction is critical.

How can you understand the interactions with prospects when campaigns and activities are executed in a standalone fashion? A marketing automation platform addresses this by bringing all these disparate marketing activities together in a flexible way so you can execute with a fuller view of actions and reactions in real time.

This connectedness allows you to gain a better understanding of the prospects and insights through how they are engaging across the entire spectrum of activities. In turn, you are more quickly able to identify content and tactics that are yielding results and those that are underperforming. You can apply these insights to prune marketing activities that aren’t delivering and achieve higher ROI by focusing on best activities to target best prospects and attracting more like them.

Positive reinforcement cycle

Bringing your marketing activities under the umbrella of a marketing automation platform leads to a virtuous cycle of positive reinforcement. As prospects download articles, visit your website pages, respond to specific email campaigns, or attend events and webinars, the marketing automation system incorporates the new data and provides actionable insights. You can use these insights to refine each step in your buyer’s journey and invest more in campaigns and approaches that are driving the best results.

Shorter path to qualification and close

The insights you gain as buyers’ progress through the journey allow you to continually refine your criteria for what constitutes a good lead. You can use these insights to adjust your objective lead scoring models to assign lower or higher scores for specific activities and prioritize leads that are ready to buy. The benefits of insights you gain during the buyer journey don’t end with marketing. Sales can also benefit from the complete view of how a lead has engaged during the marketing campaigns and use those insights to continue the conversation towards deal closure. Ultimately this leads to a shorter path to qualification and close and less wasted time chasing unqualified, less valuable leads.

Still not convinced? Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing capabilities can help you gain new insights and improve your overall marketing. Find out for yourself by signing up for a free trial of Dynamics 365 for Marketing and see how it can help improve your marketing ROI.