The following is an excerpt from Chapter 10 of Volume I of The Mortgage Professional's Handbook:
LEVERAGING BIG DATA IN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
Jason Sasena, CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER
GLOBAL Credit Union
Big data and analytics are essential for mortgage bankers to introduce new product lines, uncover new consumer insights, and increase sales-funnel optimization and cross-channel relationships. Leveraging big data in your marketing strategy will create marketing efficiencies through better targeting and tracking success.
NGData surveyed 24 data-driven marketing experts to reveal the most effective ways to leverage big data in your marketing strategy. Here are some leading points that apply to consumer direct marketing in mortgage banking industry:[i]
Centralize and integrate data sources
“…by centralizing and synthesizing their fragmented customer data sources across their point-of-sale systems, ecommerce platforms, mobile applications and social accounts with advanced Consumer Management technology. Integrating each of these customer data silos into a single, synthesized data set, delivers an unprecedented, holistic view of their customers based on their purchases, interactions and preferences. This, in turn, provides powerful intelligence to drive advanced segmentation, sophisticated personas and strategic, targeted campaigns to engage and motivate consumers. It also allows brands to identify and understand their Most Valuable Customers (MVCs) across a spectrum of dimensions beyond mere purchase value, allowing them to foster their brand affinity and cultivate their evangelism.” ~Mark Harrington
Don’t drown in the data
“Marketers today need to do more than just collect and analyze data. They need to be clear as to how the availability of this data will impact their marketing strategies and initiatives. It’s important to remember that this is not about data, but about the decisions that can be made as a result of having this data. It’s important to be aware that capturing relevant data is necessary but not sufficient. The differentiator is how you will generate insights that will improve your decision making.” ~Linda Popky, Leverage2Market Associates
Increase the data fields to further personalize communication
“…by growing the amount of fields that they gather on prospects and customers in order to further customize their communications and content with them. The more personal and unique the digital relationship becomes, the more engagement marketers earn. In addition, by dramatically expanding the amount of fields that are gathered, their ability to improve analytics will expand.” ~Scott Klososky, Future Point of View
Create an omnichannel experience
“Take it to phone call, creating an omnichannel experience for the customer as they move online to offline. Combining click-to-call with call tracking analytics makes it possible to see exactly where your best leads are coming from, meaning marketers can focus their efforts on these areas. Integrating click-to-call tracking with bid management software also means you can see which keywords lead to the most offline telephone conversions, giving you more data to adjust PPC and SEO campaigns and improve CTR on landing pages.” ~Bhavesh Vaghela, ResponseTap
The right message, the right audience
“The single most effective way marketers can leverage big data to optimize their marketing strategy….use the data to know what your prospects’ biggest problems are and determine how to effectively communicate that you can solve their problems.” ~ Chad McDonald, Anabliss Design + Brand Strategy
Automate workflows and response patterns
“…by altering workflows and response patterns based on the data they are receiving, and analysis of the overall marketing output. In this way, big data marketing automation provides more data to analyze and adapt to. This allows today’s marketer to quickly improve personalization and behavioral / predictive models based on buyer personas and segments.” ~ Todd Mumford, Riverbed Marketing
Calculate Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
“Many companies neglect their existing customers while spending more money and time in acquiring new ones.” ~Tony Faustino, Creelio.com
Tie lead-behavior data to target users who are likely to become customers
“By taking analytics one step further and continuously tying all pieces of your findings together throughout the entire sales funnel, you can generate the best approach for not just a general audience, but for the correct audience. Using tools like Bizible, Google Analytics, and Salesforce in combination with one another can provide unique, actionable results. You can see when a lead is generated and understand precise actions taken by a user while they are on your site. This gives you a better understanding of how qualified customers interact with your website, and can help you narrow in on that behavior instead of looking at it from a wider, more general standpoint.” ~ Austin Paley, Blue Fountain Media
Utilizing third party data sources:
“Google Trends allows you to gather an astronomical amount of data without ever having to do the heavy lifting yourself. From here it’s about what you do with the data and how to leverage it for your personal business or marketing needs. Once you’ve honed in on what’s trending and relevant, then it becomes about accurately tracking and monitoring your new efforts. Make sure your Analytics has a clear and precise way to determine what is and isn’t working. E.g. an individual landing page for each separate call to action.” ~Anna O’Toole, seoWorks
Big Data opportunities expand as consumers continue to create a digital footprint, connecting with social networks, checking in at places on their mobile devices, accessing personalized apps via iBeacons, and sharing data across multiple devices. With big data, marketers can now accurately identify who their customers are, understand their buying cues and what they care about. More significantly, big data is empowering marketers to deliver the right content, at the right time, in the right place, with the right message based on predictions about the customer’s’ needs at the right time.
Read the rest of this chapter in The Mortgage Professional's Handbook!