Why organizations should use business intelligence tools

For my final blog post on digital tools, I want to discuss a powerful digital tool that has the potential to bring together all of the data from the tools in my previous blogs and other organizational tools/databases. A new digital tool that I have enjoyed using recently is business intelligence software. There is so much data available to organizations these days, and it can be a daunting task to aggregate the data or pull the information manually. It is 2023, organizations should be attempting to automate as many efforts as possible. Business intelligence software makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to analyze and organize data to gain actionable insights that help them make the right decisions and optimize productivity, efficiency, and performance.

What exactly is a business intelligence tool? “Business Intelligence (BI) tools are proprietary or open source application software that are used to collect, process, analyze, sort, filter, and report large quantities of data from internal and external systems, for the purpose of transforming raw data into useful information for business purposes” (Heavy.AI, n.d.). While this blog focuses primarily on useful tools in digital marketing, business intelligence tools can be valuable for all disciplines within an organization. This week’s blog post will explore some of the most common uses for BI tools and why organizations should utilize them.

Using BI tools helps organizations collect, analyze and optimize data.

When building business intelligence (BI) tools, it is essential to establish metrics and important KPIs that align with the overall company goals. Know the difference between vanity metrics and metrics that indicate actual performance. “Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good to others but do not help you understand your own performance in a way that informs future strategies” (Tableau, n.d.). Then the organization will want to identify which data sources provide insights into these metrics, for example, CRM software, financial databases, or Google Analytics. BI tools bring organizations one step closer to achieving SMART goals. 

Use BI tools to make sense of your data.

Understanding large amounts of data from different sources can be difficult, require technical knowledge, and be highly time-consuming. BI tools can aggregate your organization’s data and automate customized reporting, so gone are the days of manual data pulling and modeling. Customized reporting and dashboards allow individuals to make sense of the information they need without spending hours figuring out which reports to read or how to read them. 

BI tools allow organizations to pull data from numerous systems or data sources. Viewing data from multiple databases that aren’t typically connected can provide vital information about business processes and performance that wouldn’t necessarily be easy to understand without BI tools.

BI tools provide insights that drive data-driven decision making

BI tools can provide a 360-degree view of your business. Organizations can create custom dashboards combining marketing, HR, IT, financial data, and much more to make sense of the ROI of their efforts. Being able to get a full view of company data in a digestible manner allows management to identify trends and drive action. Many BI tools offer additional insights, such as projections based on historical data. They can also help identify outliers or data points that display statistical significance. 

Data visualization is also an advantage of using BI tools. “Data visualization is the practice of representing information graphically to communicate and contextualize data. It highlights important changes, patterns, and trends using a visual format, such as charts, graphs, maps, and plots, to help make data easier to understand” (Yellowfin, n.d.). You can create dashboards containing data visualizations such as:

• bar charts
• line graphs
• combination graphs (ex: bar combined with line)
• pie charts
• tables
• word clouds
• maps
• gauges 
• heat maps
• scatter plots

How organizations decide to display their data is dependent on their organizational goals and the needs of their leadership. Visualization can also depend on viewer preference. For example, some individuals are highly visual and may interpret data better with graphs and charts, while some may prefer hard numbers in the form of data tables. Personally, I prefer visuals because they can help me quickly identify trends. The BI tool I currently use allows me to click on my visuals which drills down into the data details if I need to explore deeper. 

See an example of a dashboard built from the BI tool DOMO. This dashboard includes many different examples of visualization tools. 

Domo, (n.d.)

How to select a BI tool that fits your organization

As mentioned earlier in this blog post, when choosing a business intelligence tool, it is first essential to identify organizational goals and how the software can help achieve established goals. If the tool lacks the capability to provide insights to achieve company goals, it is not the right software. Some other factors organizations should also consider are company size and growth trajectory. Does the tool fit the needs of the business now, and is it scalable along with company growth plans? If the tool is too robust now but the organization has loft growth plans, something more advanced may be necessary. Budget is also an important consideration. It is crucial to invest wisely in these tools while also considering the ROI they can provide when used correctly. For example, will a thorough understanding of your whole marketing mix and sales and financial data allow your team to identify opportunities to improve ROI and acquisition costs? Organizations may want to invest more in their BI infrastructure based on the insights they can gain from utilizing BI tools. 

Some popular tools that organizations use for business intelligence software (not limited to):

• DOMO
• Tableau
• Power BI (Microsoft-based tool)
• Looker Studio (Google-based tool)

Competing business intelligence tools also offer different features that may attract those with more advanced analysts on staff, and some may be more user-friendly to beginners. Some tools require development knowledge. User-friendliness is definitely a factor to consider when choosing a tool. There are also developers available for hire to help organizations build out their dream systems, but it can be an additional financial investment and add to the overall budget required. 

BI tools for digital marketers

From a digital marketing perspective, a BI tool can help marketers learn more about customer behavior, measure marketing efforts across multiple channels, evaluate performance across all stages of the customer journey, and maximize ROI. If the marketing team works with other departments within the organization, these efforts can be combined within dashboards to see how the actions work together.   

Marketing can be very expensive but also a great way for companies to generate revenue and profit. Being able to dissect data and get a wholistic view provides opportunity to improve revenue and optimize marketing efforts.

If your organization is looking for ways to automate reporting, customize data, improve ROI, and visualize overall performance to gain a competitive advantage, a business intelligence tool is a great next step. After working with a couple different BI tools, I am always looking for ways to automate and improve reporting within these tools.

References

Domo. (n.d.). External business intelligence dashboards: real-world examples. Domo. https://www.domo.com/learn/article/external-business-intelligence-dashboards-real-world-examples

HEAVY.AI. (n.d.). BI tools – a complete introduction. HEAVY.AI. https://www.heavy.ai/learn/bi-tools

Tableau. (n.d.). Vanity metrics: definition, how to identify them, and examples. Tableau. https://www.tableau.com/learn/articles/vanity-metrics#:~:text=What%20are%20vanity%20metrics%3F,way%20that%20informs%20future%20strategies.

Yellowfin Team. (n.d.). What is data visualization and its importance in business intelligence. Yellowfin. https://www.yellowfinbi.com/blog/what-is-data-visualization-importance-in-business-intelligence

Why your organization should be using a social media management software

Social media is a huge part of the modern world in both people’s personal and professional lives. According to Statista (2023), 4.89 billion people are on social media in 2023. That number will keep growing over time. Your brand is likely already on social media, but are you utilizing your platforms and available data to its fullest? Managing multiple social media accounts can be a lot to keep track of and time-consuming. How does an organization stay organized and stick to their social media strategy? One of the best ways to manage regular content, understand social media analytics, and engage with social media users is to use a social media management software.

Social media management can be a time-consuming process

Social media management can be a time-consuming process. The time involved in creating content, managing social media accounts, posting content, monitoring accounts, interacting with users and measuring success can all add up quickly. Especially if you are doing all of this manually within each social media platform. This is why you need a social media management software that takes care of these tasks for you so that your team can focus on other priorities.

Your social media, all in one accessible place

Social media management softwares integrate all social channels into the platform so that organizations can manage their accounts in one space. The software can schedule and publish posts on popular social media channels so that once marketers have content ready, they can add the content into the tool and schedule in advance. This allows for marketers to spend less time posting and more time on other important efforts.

Your customers are engaging on social media, make sure you are too! Social media is a great way to connect with your customers. You can answer their questions, help solve problems, provide customer service and build brand loyalty. Similarly to posting, this can be a daunting and time-consuming task if done manually in each platform. Many social media management tools allow marketers to do this in one place. For example, according to Hootsuite’s platform sales page, their tool has an “inbox is designed to help you monitor messages from different networks in a single view. Filter out those that require action, bulk dismiss the ones that don’t, and respond yourself or assign another team member to the task” (Hootsuite, n.d.). Engaging with your audience doesn’t have to be difficult. Set yourself up for success with a platform that allows your organization to aggregate inboxes and communication efforts for efficiency.

Analyze social media metrics with ease to help grow your business

Collecting, analyzing and interpreting data from social media platforms is important for your business to understand how your content aligns with your business goals and what your customers are saying about you online.

A thorough understanding of social media performance will help inform decisions about where to focus your marketing efforts and how much time and/or money should be spent on each platform. You’ll also be able to see if there are any opportunities for growth within existing channels or if it might be time for something new entirely.

Since social media channels can be integrated into social media management tools, the performance data from social postings is generally available within the tool. Some tools such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social, allow for organizations to create custom reporting based on their social media goals. Below is an example of a custom dashboard from Hootsuite’s platform. Analyzing results of social media actions is vital to the improvement of these efforts.

(Hootsuite, n.d.)

Test it out!

Social media management software is a helpful tool for any business looking to invest time and/or money in social channels. Social media tools allows organizations to keep up with all of the networks where their customers are spending time, engage with these customers, and analyze their efforts.

I hope that you have learned why your company should be using a social media management software and how it can help you achieve your organization’s marketing goals. . This blog mentions just some of the features that these platforms offer, check out different tools to see what other kind of features they may offer. If you are contemplating which social media management platform to integrate into your organization’s martech stack, check out which offer a free trial period!

See the videos below for some ideas on researching these tools.

 

 

References:

Dixon, S. (2023, January 24). Number of social media users worldwide from 2017 to 2027. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/

Hootsuite. (n.d.). Don’t miss a single message or mention. Hootsuite. https://www.hootsuite.com/platform/engage

Hootsuite. (n.d.). See your results. Hootsuite. https://www.hootsuite.com/platform/analyze

The Social Shells. (2022, February 25). Best social media management tools 2022. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqvKy0-RJGg

Sales and Marketing Training by Impact. (2021, January 29). 4 best social media management tools for brands. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxOYUn2Wycs

How email marketing tools can provide organizations with valuable insights and efficiency

There are a wide range of benefits that email marketing tools can provide to organizations and consumers alike. I know what you’re thinking, email marketing can be spammy, annoying, and overwhelming at times. “The average person will receive over 100 emails per day” (Campbell, 2022). As a marketer or business owner, that statistic can feel like an overwhelming number. You may think to yourself, “How will I ever catch someone’s attention in all of the noise?”

In order to get the most out of your email marketing efforts and budget, email marketing platforms provide valuable performance insights and automation features.

Email marketing performance insights

Email marketing platforms can provide marketers with useful data so that they can connect with their customers in the right way at the right time. There are many metrics that these tools can track including:

• Open rate – rate of those who open the email vs. successful deliveries
• Click rate – rate of those who click into clickable elements (links, images, buttons, etc) vs. successful deliveries
• Bounce rate – rate of emails going to undeliverable inboxes
• Device open rate – mobile opens vs. desktop opens

These platforms also can tell you WHO opened your email, which email addresses resulted in an unsuccessful delivery, which users clicked within elements of an email and where they clicked, who unsubscribed and who reported the sender as spam or junk. From a consumer side, this may seem a little creepy but these insights are valuable to marketing and sales teams. Obtaining these insights also enable email marketers to better understand their audience and what interests them/turns them off. From these insights, marketers can also tailor their email marketing lists into more specific sales funnels or email distribution lists.

The image below demonstrates an example of a reporting dashboard from the popular email marketing tool, Constant Contact.

Email marketing automation

Many popular email marketing tools like Constant Contact or MailChimp also allow for marketers to automate their email marketing efforts. “Email automation is a powerful marketing automation tool that lets you send the right message to the right people at the right time, using automated workflows, which is extremely effective for lead nurturing, and ultimately, to drive sales from potential customers as well as existing ones” (MailChimp, n.d.).

With email marketing tools, organizations can proactively schedule email marketing efforts ahead of time. This allows companies to build out pre-planned email marketing campaigns and set up a schedule ahead of time instead of standing by the send button when it is time to send out an email.

Email marketing automation also allows for automated emails to be sent when the end user takes a specific action. For example, if a website user signs up for a discount code, the email marketing tool can trigger an email automatically to the consumer with the discount code and place them within an automated drip campaign. “Drip campaigns gradually “drip” useful content about a company, product, or industry” (Mailchimp, n.d.). These campaigns allow the organization to nurture a lead via email marketing efforts.

Another useful feature that email marketing platforms offer is A/B testing. “A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a way of working out which of two campaign options is the most effective in terms of encouraging opens or clicks” (Campaign Monitor, n.d.). When utilizing this testing method, organizations can test on a segment of their contact list and then whichever variation of the split test “wins”, the email marketing tool will automatically send that variation of the email to the rest of the group. This allows organizations to send users the best content and optimize their email campaigns over time based on the performance and insights gained from A/B testing.

Campaign building

Most email marketing tools these days offer some type of campaign builder. These tools offer customizable professional email templates or allow users to build out a professional email utilizing drag and drop elements. These builders allow so even those who don’t have design or development experience can produce an attractive and professional email campaign. The below image demonstrates some of the drag and drop elements available in the Constant Contact email marketing platform which is similar to other builders.

 

Overall, if your organization is utilizing email as a marketing tactic, you should consider email marketing platforms in your martech stack. Not only can it give your company valuable consumer behavior insights, it can nurture leads throughout the customer journey, test automate marketing processes for efficiency, and produce professional campaigns in an easy and quick manner.

If you have used an email marketing tool at your organization, which one is your favorite and why?

References

Campaign Monitor. (n.d.). A/B test your email campaigns. https://help.campaignmonitor.com/ab-test-your-email-campaigns#:~:text=A%2FB%20testing%2C%20also%20known,percentage%20of%20your%20total%20recipients.

Campbell, S. (2022, December 21). How many emails does the average person receive per day In 2023? The Small Business Blog. https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/how-many-emails-does-the-average-person-receive-per-day/

MailChimp. (n.d.). Email automation. MailChimp. https://mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/email-automation/

 

How can CRM tools provide organizations with a competitive advantage?

Today, organizations are continually looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage. Many organizations consistently focus on their product or service for their competitive edge. While this is vital to what an organization has to offer, they may overlook the advantage their internal systems and digital infrastructure can provide. Particularly how they track their leads, manage customer relationships, and market their customers. A Customer Relationship Management system or CRM is the most popular digital tool to accomplish these items. 

What is CRM?

“CRM software is a system for managing your relationships with customers. You can use CRM software to keep track of interactions, data, and notes about customers or potential. The data is stored in a central database and is accessible to multiple people within an organization. A CRM helps streamline sales, marketing efforts, customer service, accounting, and management for growing companies. Multiple people can access and edit the information about a particular client’s customer journey” (Hubspot, n.d.). 

“As the digital world develops, businesses will need to adapt to remain relevant. CRM’s have provided the support that corporate enterprises need to excel amongst increasing market competition, and the parallel evolution of advanced lead generation tools in CRM systems is poised to remain the holy grail of growth acceleration” (Wertz, n.d.). 

As Wertz mentions, CRM tools can provide organizations with resources and tools to get ahead of their competition. There are several common functionalities in CRM tools that give users valuable insights and capabilities:

• Lead management
  • CRM tools allow marketers and sales professionals to track clients/leads through their customer journey. The tool stores customer information and tracks the organization’s interactions with these leads or customers. These interactions might be tracked through automation or manual entry. Based on where an individual is in their customer journey, marketing and/or sales can create actionable tasks to move customers to the next step of their journey.
• Marketing
  • Based on where individuals are in the customer journey, many CRM tools can deploy automated (or manual) marketing campaigns. CRM tools can also deploy marketing campaigns based off other factors such as customer segments, purchase history, etc. Marketing automation via CRM is a great way to simplify complex marketing tasks and make an organization more efficient.
• Data
  • CRM tools can provide valuable data and insights on various aspects of a customer journey. Some examples of valuable insights a CRM tool can provide:
    • Customer/lead demographic data (who is inquiring about a product or service and who is converting into a customer)
    • Sales data (which sales efforts are producing ROI)
    • Marketing data (which marketing campaigns are producing an ROI and which marketing campaigns may need further optimization)
  • Many CRM tools provide reports and dashboards. Some CRM tools even allow organizations to create custom reports and dashboards tailored to their organizational needs.

While CRM tools provide many benefits, these are some of the most commonly used and valuable features that can easily help organizations advance their digital infrastructure and gain a competitive advantage.

What CRM tool is right for your organization?

There are many factors that come into play when selecting a CRM tool for an organization. Some of these factors include business needs, budget, company size, etc.

One of the most popular and flexible CRM platforms available is Salesforce. Salesforce provides the ability to customize the tool towards business needs, create custom reporting dashboards, automate marketing campaigns, automate sales tasks and much more. While this tool sounds like the right choice, Salesforce can be a very expensive platform. Also, in order to customize the tool, Salesforce often requires developer knowledge specific to their tool which many organizations do not have a Salesforce developer on staff or within their budget. While Salesforce is a powerful tool, it may not be practical or necessary for all organizations.

There are also many CRM platforms that are industry specific. These platforms are often more cost-effective and have a basic understanding of the industry needs, therefore, these platforms are built out with industry standards and needs in mind. For example, there are CRM platforms tailored to healthcare needs that integrate with other healthcare systems such as Electronic Medical Record systems or scheduling software. Other examples of industry-specific CRM platforms are real estate, travel, fitness, etc.

When evaluating what CRM tool is best for your organization, I recommend having a clear understanding of marketing/sales goals, company budget, and data needs. Once you have a clear understanding of your organizational needs, you can decide on which CRM software is best for your company and the bottom line.

In conclusion, by having access to CRM capabilities, organizations can position themselves better in a competitive landscape.

References

Hubspot. (n.d.). What is Customer Relationship Management? Hubspot. https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm/what-is

Wertz, J. (n.d.). How CRMs help businesses gain a competitive advantage. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2019/10/30/how-crms-help-businesses-gain-a-competitive-advantage/?sh=6457eb062ac2

Welcome to my blog!

Hello and welcome to my virtual marketing café! My name is Haley Randolph, and I’m a healthcare marketing director with a passion and drive to continue learning and applying new digital marketing strategies. I graduated from Boise State University in 2015 with a double major in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. Currently, I am pursuing a Masters degree in Digital Marketing and Analytics which will help me refine my knowledge of various digital engagement platforms including:

• social media
• digital paid advertising
• SEO
• content creation/optimization
• digital marketing reporting tools, and more!

 

Digital marketing technology and business digital infrastructure is changing the way we connect with customers and within our own organizations. This has driven innovations in digital data collection and analysis, making it easier than ever to capture valuable insights that help you drive informed business and marketing decisions. At a time when social media and digital advertising influences brand perception as much as any other form of traditional advertising, having insight into your audience behavior is undeniably crucial for any business looking to evolve its online marketing campaign strategies. “While digital marketing tools will only help you execute a proper strategy (they won’t do the work for you), the right technology stack can really help you zoom past the competition” (Tolbert, 2022).

Throughout this blog series, we will explore different digital tools that can help drive data-driven decision making, marketing automation, and many more efficiencies for all different types of organizations. Some tools we will explore are social media tools, customer relationship management tools, reporting tools and much more.

If there is anything you’d like to see within the blog, please comment!

References

Tolbert, L. (2022, August 9). The 20 best digital marketing tools in 2022. Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/digital-marketing-tools