Seize the treasure in social data to boost marketing to targeted lists.
Contributor: Chris Pemberton
Social data shows there are two types of tax preparers: the “Do-It-for-Me” people who go it alone and the “Do-It-With-Me” folks who want a little hand-holding. These are the personas identified by a national tax preparation software provider after gleaning insights about tax preparers from social networks and consumer research.
The company targeted content to each persona, leading to improved sentiment and engagement throughout the tax season. The company also mapped how its followers were interacting with competitors to further differentiate the content. That’s a powerful one-two punch of data-driven social insight that improved ad targeting and increased positive sentiment.
Social media profile data can provide marketers with rich insights about their customers and prospects for data modeling, content development and targeting, noted Jay Wilson, research director, Gartner for Marketing Leaders.
The fusion process
Marketers can find real treasure in the data flowing through social conversations. To start, they must connect the social profiles of fans and followers with real-life customers to make the data actionable. The overall process consists of four steps:
- Understand the types of social profile data available
- Connect your followers’ social IDs (via opt-in) with your customer database wherever possible — a value exchange is critical here
- Leverage data analytics to understand and segment your social audience
- Develop and target content that resonates with those segments
Note that a few important details will help marketers successfully navigate what many see as an overwhelming task.
Permission-driven connections
Connections between social IDs and first-party data sources happen at the individual level but are hampered by a lack of customer-provided information. The preferred method for addressing this challenge is to ask for permission in any number of ways, such as during a registration event or participation in a promotion. Once connected, social data can be used to personalize communications. First-party data connections are just one way of leveraging social for higher-impact marketing.
Network-based insights
Another pathway to social insights exists within social networks. While Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter make the richest data accessible only in aggregate via their ad platforms, this does not mean valuable insights are out of reach. Marketers can target groups of users on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn by uploading customer lists. Additionally, several tools exist to analyze established and potential audiences to conduct influencer analyses, social segmentation and lead identification, to name a few.
Build better content
Use personas supplemented with the real-world data you’ve connected to develop better content. Social data can arm you with all the information you need to create compelling, differentiated content all along the buying journey.
In the case of the national tax preparation software provider, this data was all it needed to develop distinct campaigns, website content, videos and social messages targeted at the “Do-It-With-Me’s” and “Do-It-for-Me’s” of the world.
See what steps marketing leaders are taking to become truly data-driven.
Gartner for Marketing Leaders clients can read more in Connect Social IDs and Customer Data to Create Powerful, Actionable Marketing by Jay Wilson.
Additional analysis about digital marketing strategies and tactics will be discussed at the Gartner Digital Marketing Conference, May 17-19 in San Diego, CA. Follow news and updates from the event on Twitter using #GartnerDMC.
For more articles on marketing visit Smarter With Gartner website.
