Recently, we’re all starting to realize something new in marketing: the importance of data driven marketing. Marketers have always focused on how to identify and attract the ideal customer. So much of marketing revolves around the consumer and what they want in that moment. While this mindset can be helpful in leading to company success and sustaining customer satisfaction, it’s necessary to begin thinking on a larger level as well. Understanding how to leverage and calibrate data – what you are seeing that was expected and unexpected? What direction are those results pointing in? It’s time for marketers to step back and seriously consider how they can make a difference in their companies and industry instead of just for their target customers.

Marketing as a business

Usually, marketing is viewed as something that requires creativity in order to attract and retain customers. For a business to succeed, there needs to be revenue, which is where marketing and sales comes into the picture. Marketers work to keep customers interested in their product or service and usually focus on quarterly results instead of long-term success. This focus isn’t necessarily bad; customer satisfaction is vitally important to businesses and it’s understandable that a marketing department gets caught up in how to improve revenue. However, it’s time to start focusing on marketing as a business and work toward driving overall business growth and customer loyalty.

Focus on the big picture

Achieving long-term success in a business involves focusing on the big picture instead of day- to-day operations. It’s time for marketers to think about how they can work toward improving the business as a whole and leading to industry-wide contributions instead of merely focusing on short-term operations within their own company. This mindset will lead to great developments throughout marketing and business so then marketers can collaborate with each other in a way that makes them as efficient as possible. The entire point of marketing is positively impacting the business and helping it grow. It’s time marketers remembered this vital goal.

Where big data comes in

Currently, marketers measure their success through details like click-thru rates, turnover, and other specific marketing terms and ways of measuring smaller data. While these statistics can be incredibly helpful to marketers and guide their decisions relating to customers, other people within the company will not see the significance of this information. Marketers should focus on measuring marketing effectiveness across all channels and how it can be used to benefit the CEO or director of a company – Connecting marketing actions to business objectives.

How can it be measured?

If you don’t already, it’s time to measure as much data about your business as possible in order to model and implement future marketing spend. You need a 360 view of offline and online marketing. If you attend trade shows and host your own events, evaluate the two against one another to see which offers a higher ROI. In some areas, it will be more difficult to find accurate data about your methods of marketing your business and whether or not it’s leading to positive growth for the business as a whole. In a circumstance like that, you might consider comparing yourself to your competitors. Learn how they do business, then measure changes and your company’s success or failures against that. Even if something cannot be measured by data, it’s important to continue focusing on the big picture and do the best you can to show how marketing leads to long-term financial performance for the company.