Introduction

Data in the twenty-first century is like oil in the eighteenth century: an enormously valuable,
untapped asset. Like oil, those who recognise the fundamental value of data and learn to
extract and use it will reap enormous rewards.
In today's digital economy, data is more valuable than ever. It is critical to the smooth
operation of everything from the government to small businesses. Without it, progress would
come to a halt.
For many companies, their data infrastructure is still a cost center nowadays and should become a
profit centre by using the data to improve everything, day by day. Companies must begin treating data
as an enterprise-wide corporate asset while also managing the data locally within business units.
This enables sharing of data about products and customers – which provides opportunities to up sell,
cross sell, improve customer service and retention rates. By using internal data in combination with
external data, there is a huge opportunity for every company in the world to create new products and
services across lines of business.
Marketing managers build brands, generate demand, promote sales, and help organizations secure
customer loyalty in vast and diverse marketing conditions, with many complex and dynamic
variables. Today's marketing strategies must coordinate a team's ability and resources with
stakeholder expectations, customer satisfaction, and increasingly, other ethical and compounding
environmental concerns. 
This multiplex landscape demands scientific decision-making that leverages comprehensive,
definitive, and end-to-end knowledge when it comes to company operations and audience
engagement. To this end, martech solutions provide valuable data sets that can be leveraged to
produce positive customer responses.
However, a marketing manager must first understand target customers' needs. This is where gathering
the correct data can help make better decisions that result in marketing efficiency in terms of pricing
strategy, marketing policy, and the development of achievable KPIs.
Types of Data used in Marketing Mix
Effective marketing plans positively influence the marketing mix, i.e., product, placement, price, and
promotion. When marketing management uses data to direct strategies within components that
comprise the marketing mix, they create a visible, in-demand product or service comparatively priced
and promoted on selective distribution channels.
While analytics provides extensive data, which affects key marketing decisions, it can be challenging
to discern which data is most important. Below are critical areas where data gathering and analysis are
key to making important marketing decisions related to business organization success.
Sales Data
This data includes measurable metrics derived from the sales process that reveals how and why
products or services sell. Sales growth, annual recurring revenue, churn rate, net revenue, retention
rate, and average profit margin are some metrics that fall into this mix.
Customer Data
Marketers need to know who buys their products and services. Understanding this data improves
target market segmentation and allows businesses to meet target market expectations with strategic
content marketing strategies that drive leads down the buyer's funnel.
There are a range of customer data platforms (CDPs) and customer relationships management
(CRMs) systems available to help unify first-party data from multiple sources into a complete view of
each customer, as well as manage customer relationships.
Bloomreach,Insider, Oracle, Salesforce and HubSpot are widely used by the marketing industry to
strategically leverage data for business growth.
Competitor Analysis
By evaluating your competitors to understand their strengths and weakness, you can identify gaps in
the market and improve your value proposition and business strategy.
According to Big Commerce, a competitor analysis is an effective strategy that helps identify the
main market players and determine what strategies they use and the resources a company can leverage
to dominate the market. Competitor analysis provides a benchmark for company growth and
identifies the type of marketing strategies required to produce positive customer responses. For
instance, the customer may want to see humorous advertisements or prefer video rather than blog
content.

Market Research
Not to be confused with competitor analysis, market research reveals the position and feasibility of a
company within the market and business landscape. Its primary purpose is to understand or examine
the marketing environment associated with a product or service.
Market research can help achieve administrative, social, and economic goals, including the refinement
of marketing objectives, public relations, promotion decisions, and product line development. Four
common types of market research techniques include surveys, interviews, focus groups, and customer
observation.
Product Data
While connected to sales data, it's important to remember that not all product data is derived from
sales. Product data helps businesses cultivate brand affinity and increases the lifetime value of a
consumer, driving acquisition, sales, and positive customer response.
KPIs and metrics will vary from company to company. However, product analytics should, on the
whole, track and analyse real-time engagement and behavioural data, so organizations can optimize
the customer journey with the right promotional strategy and content distribution channel.
One of the most important metrics to follow is the product adoption rate. It’s the key indicator for
measuring the performance of new products, features, and updates.
Aligning Analytics to Revenue Generation
Marketing analytics should shed light on the interactions that drive revenue — not just those that are
easy to measure. Phone conversations are an untapped source of insight, particularly in categories like
finance, healthcare, and telecoms (which sell products and services that are complex, emotionally
fraught, and at a high price point).
In today’s uncertain economic and public health environment, it is more important than ever before to
make decisions that are grounded in facts and connected to revenue. Effective use of data and
analytics can help marketers stay anchored to their customers’ changing reality and focused on their
moments of truth.
Does Data Confer Network Effects?
Data-enabled network effects, like regular network effects, can create entry barriers. Both
types of effects present a significant cold-start, or chicken-or-egg, problem: Businesses that
want to create regular network effects must first attract a certain number of users, whereas
those that want to create data-enabled network effects must first collect a certain amount of
data to begin the virtuous cycle of learning.
Despite these similarities, regular network effects and data-enabled network effects differ
significantly, and the latter tend to strengthen advantages based on the former.
Conclusion
Research conducted by Mckinsey found organizations that use data to make marketing decisions are
23 times more likely to acquire customers, six times more likely to retain them, and 19 times more
likely to be profitable. This scientific approach seizes opportunities for granular growth and achieves
significantly greater resilience and ROI.
Improving offerings with customer data will be a requirement for staying in the game in the coming
decades, and it may give incumbents an advantage over new entrants. However, in most cases, it will
not result in winner-take-all dynamics. Instead, for the foreseeable future, the most valuable and
powerful businesses will be those that are both built on regular network effects and enhanced by data-
enabled learning, such as Alibaba's and Amazon's marketplaces, Apple's App Store, and Facebook's
social networks.