Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

Content Isn't King. Marketing Data Is.

June 09, 2022 Neal Schaffer Episode 270
Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer
Content Isn't King. Marketing Data Is.
Show Notes Transcript

A lot of us in digital and social media marketing seem to get lost in the universe of content and engagement.

What gets lost in the conversation is the fundamental role and importance that marketing data SHOULD play in your marketing strategy.

It's simple: The more data you have, the more effective your marketing will be.

If you don't have enough data, it is worth investing in acquiring it.

This is a short and sweet episode but I wanted to inspire you to put emphasis on data in your marketing.

Key Highlights

[02:49] Why Everything You Do Should Be Data-Driven As Possible

[03:43] My First Experience With Understanding How Powerful Data Can Be

[05:04] You Need to Experiment More

[07:48] Be Aggressive in Getting the Data

[08:44] How Data Can Help You Make Informed Decisions

[09:15] I Encourage You to Spend A Little Money in Terms You Can Get More Data

Notable Quotes

  • But we talk about in marketing a data driven strategy, I believe that everything we do should be as data driven as possible. Obviously, it's hard to do almost everything data driven. But there's a lot of things that we can do.
  • They could relatively predict as to how a given campaign will perform. That is extremely powerful, because we want to know where to invest our money as business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers, and what is going to be Return on assets. And then we can compare and contrast.
  • It's not always clear cut, but the more data we have, then the more we can predict these things.
  • The more you do this, across different social networks, different follower size counts, you begin to understand the market price for working with influencers.
  • It all comes down to this data, this first party data, the more we know, the more informed our decisions can be, the more things become predictable, the bigger impact we can have with the same marketing budget, because now we can pick and choose what are going to be the avenues that have the best chance of success.
  •  So I wanted to throw it out there and encourage you, it's okay to spend a little money or, you know, to engage with influencers to publish a little more content, whatever it is, if you're looking to get that data to use going forward in a lot of different ways, especially if you're trying to compare and contrast different channels -- that's going to be really, really important to get as much data and to really leverage that data as part of a data driven approach to digital content, influencer, social media marketing, whatever brand of marketing that you choose to do today. 

Learn More:

Neal Schaffer:

Data. Data means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But I want you to understand after listening to this episode, why getting more data is only going to help you marketing and how to accelerate the acquisition of data. All of this on this next episode of The your digital marketing coach, podcast, digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, who there's a lot to cover, whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got, Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer here. Welcome to my podcast as your digital marketing coach, it has been a great week of traveling, the traveling I did was here in the United States, it was more on a personal level. But it was really encouraging to see that we are really getting back to normal in many, many different ways. I think the only time that I wore a mask was really on the airplane and potentially in the airport. But most places these days, masks are definitely more optional. And just looking at the data, it looks like it is a lot more controllable than it used to be at least here in the United States. So I know that there are people around the world where the situation is still on lockdown or master store acquired, but it is very encouraging to see how things have developed. And hopefully, you know, it's been two years. Hopefully we're on our way out of this. So looking forward to doing more traveling, I do have a Midwest trip coming up. I've already sent out messages to my LinkedIn connections. But if you are in the Midwest, I'm going to be doing some in person networking events, over lunch or dinner, we'd love to meet you, specifically in cities like St. Louis, Indianapolis, Nashville in Chicago. So if that's you, or if you live in the area, make sure that you reach out to me make sure you connect with me on LinkedIn. And let me know and then I will let you know the details about the date, time and exact locations. Obviously, my LinkedIn is linkedin.com/in/neal. Schaffer, n al Sch. Ff er, on to today's topic, data, data data. You say tomato, I say tomato, I don't care how you pronounce it. But we talk about in marketing a data driven strategy, I believe that everything we do should be as data driven as possible. Obviously, it's hard to do almost everything data driven. But there's a lot of things that we can do. And, you know, intrinsically, and it's really, really important. But I want to give you some more specific advice of questions that I often get asked from clients and just when I speak or, you know, through listeners, for instance, how much should I pay an influencer? How much should I invest in Facebook ads? How many views should I expect to get from a blog post? Or from a YouTube video? Or if I have 1000 followers on Twitter? How much engagement should I get on average? See the answers to all these questions are in getting experience when you get experience you get data. Now, my first experience, no pun intended, with understanding just how powerful this data can become, was when I worked together with open influence, influencer marketing, platform and agency on the ebook, how AI is revolutionizing influencer marketing, which also became repurposed into the final chapter of the age of influence. So for those of you who read that, it was the CEO and founder of open influence Eric de Han, who talked about first party data. And first party data meant that it's data that you own. So as an influencer marketing tool or platform, open influence has a heck of a lot of data because they have ran, they have run campaigns on behalf of their clients. So they know over time, depending on a few things like niche, follower count, average engagement rate, they could actually predict together with AI that they were using, which was what the ebook in my chapter all about, but they could relatively predict as to how a given campaign will perform. That is extremely powerful, because we want to know where to invest our money as business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers, and what is going to be Return on assets. And then we can compare and contrast, should we do A or B. But in order to get to that conclusion, you have to have data and the more data you have, the more this is where I get into this concept of you need to be experimenting more with your digital and social media. Because as you experiment, you acquire more data. And as you acquire more data and you analyze it, you begin to see patterns, you begin to generate averages, and you begin to see what you should expect from any given marketing activity. Now, it's not always clear cut, but the more data we have, then the more we can predict these things. So I gave you the example of influencer marketing campaigns. The same can be said of how much do I pay an influencer? Have you worked with influencers? Have you gone onto influencer marketing platform websites? And see how much influencers are charging for things? Have you reached out to influencers and ask them how much it would cost for a collaboration. And the more you do this, across different social networks, different follower size counts, you begin to understand the market price for working with influencers. Same thing with ad platforms. Now, ad platforms are the ones where I think most companies get it that they need more data to understand what is going to be average cost per click, cost per impression, cost per conversion. So I was recently granted access to the Amazon ads platform for my book, The Age of influence. I mean, I could do it for any of my books. But until now, if you worked with a traditional publishing company, like I did with HarperCollins, leadership, I could not promote my book using Amazon ads, I've had to be promoted by the publisher of the book who really owns the listing. But Amazon just two weeks ago said, we're now going to allow the author of the book if the book is in your Amazon Author Central to actually use Amazon ads. Awesome. Now I have the ability to get my own data as to how my book, or how others on Amazon might respond to my book when they see the ad. Because I know that I've responded to ads, and bought books, or at least gain awareness of that book, which I bought at a later time from looking at that ad, right? So I want to spend a lot of money right now to understand what are going to be the money keywords, where can I focus my effort in the future? And manage a few keywords? Or I don't know how many it's going to be? What can I expect from that. So if I really want to push book sales, or maybe in the future, when I have my new book out, and I want to print sales, how much do I need to invest to get what sort of impact or I spend some money and you know what, I didn't get any conversions, and I tried all these different keywords at different bidding strategies, and I got nothing, well, maybe it's not the platform for me, maybe I'm better off doing other types of advertising. And we can only come with these data driven decisions, once we have the data. And we need to be aggressive in getting the data. If I only spend $1 a day on Amazon ads, and and the average cost per click is $1, it's gonna take me a long time to get a significant data. So I'm gonna have to spend a lot more than that, in the hopes of accelerating this data collection exercise so that I can leverage that data quicker, come to quicker decisions, quicker impact, quicker profit. And that's what I want to encourage you to do. If it is well, if I was to double my Twitter following or Instagram following what impact would that have on visibility on link clicks, whatever it is, well use paid social media to help you accelerate by getting that data, or accelerate the publication of more blog content or YouTube views to get a feel as to what impact that might have not just on views. But on leads or conversions, it all comes down to this data, this first party data, the more we know, the more informed our decisions can be, the more things become predictable, the bigger impact we can have with the same marketing budget, because now we can pick and choose what are going to be the avenues that have the best chance of success. I don't think I need to talk at length about this subject. But it's something that comes up a lot. It's something I don't see a lot of people talking about are talking enough about visa vie marketing. So I wanted to throw it out there and encourage you, it's okay to spend a little money or, you know, to engage with influencers to publish a little more content, whatever it is, if you're looking to get that data to use going forward in a lot of different ways, especially if you're trying to compare and contrast different channels. That's going to be really, really important to get as much data and to really leverage that data as part of a data driven approach to digital content, influencer, social media marketing, whatever brand of marketing that you choose to do today. That's what it's about. I am all about experimenting and trying to get that data. And I hope that you'll join me in pursuit of data Excellence, which leads to marketing excellence. Hey, As always, I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. If you're new here, I hope you'll subscribe. If you are a avid listener, I just wanted to thank you. Every now and then I get a listener here that reaches out to me says how much this podcast has impacted them. That really makes my day. So thank you so much from the bottom my heart, if there's things you want me to talk about, hey, feel free to let me know if you have questions. I don't have a discord yet. I hope to create one in the near future. But until then, you can just reach out to me and I hope to be able to serve you both in this podcast and outside of it. All right, everybody. As always, keep your eye fixated on that goal. And we'll talk to you in the next episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the shownotes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.