5 Steps For Using Customer Data To Drive Your Online Marketing Strategy

11/27/21

Data is the key to success in today's world. It helps businesses make better decisions, serve their customers better, and prepare for future challenges. Customer data can help you take your marketing efforts to the next level by insights into what leads are more likely to convert. This article will go over five steps that will help you use something like 360 customer view to drive your online marketing strategy!

Define your Customer Data Strategy

The first step to using customer data is defining your strategy. A customer data platform can be a bit overwhelming, so you must have a plan for how and where you'll use the information before diving into any campaigns or initiatives. Here are some questions that will help guide your process:

  • What challenges do we face?
  • How does our product/service meet those needs better than competitors'?
  • Who's our target audience? Why should they buy from us instead of somebody else? How do we make them trust us as an authority in this field? Do they need proof of who we are (e.g., testimonials)?


You don't want to define too many goals at once; focus on one or two goals to start with. Once you have a strategy in place, your next step is to learn more about your customers' online behavior and how they interact with businesses like yours.

Gain Insights into your Customers Online Behavior

Now that you've defined what success looks like for your company, it's time to get the facts! There are three key steps here:

  • Identify where your target audience spends their time online (e.g., Facebook groups dedicated to collectors of vintage Nikon cameras)
  • Collect data (social posts or forum posts mentioning brand name; product reviews; etc.)
  • Use this information strategically throughout all aspects of marketing campaigns/initiatives moving forward by looking at content trends across channels and demographics and determining the types of content your audience finds valuable.


Create a Content Marketing Plan

You've successfully gained insights into what's important to your customers. Still, you need to put together a plan for how this information can help drive positive results for your business. Here are some questions to consider:

  • What is our overall marketing strategy? How does customer data fit in here?
  • What channels should we focus on (e.g., social media)? Why?
  • Who makes up our target audience, and where do they spend their time online (and off!)? Where else might we find them (in person or offline)?
  • What type of content resonates with them? How do they want to receive it (e.g., blog posts, infographics, video)? Why?


This stage is all about finding the happy medium between what you need to get done and what your audience wants from you. Make sure this plan is realistic enough that you can execute it!

Create Social Media Posts that Resonate with Potential Customers

Businesses need to take an active role in the communities where their target audiences live, whether those are online or off. This means posting regularly (daily!) on all channels but ensuring each post is tailored toward its specific platform/audience. Your overall strategy should be based around customer needs: finding people who need what you offer and creating content that will help them solve whatever problem they might face as soon as possible. Social media can also work well if followed up by email outreach campaigns; this way, any interested parties can be directed toward your website to learn more about the products and services you offer.

Monitor Consumer Sentiment on Social Media

Social media is a great way for businesses to get instant feedback from their target audiences, whether it's good or bad! It also helps you stay up-to-date with what consumers are saying about your business in general; plus, if someone has an issue (e.g., product defect), they might voice concerns on social channels first before contacting customer service directly.

Many companies use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social (both of which allow automated content publishing across different platforms/channels) and Google Alerts to track these conversations around topics related to the brand name and relevant keywords. This way, you can promptly respond to questions or concerns and stay on top of any negative reviews & complaints that might impact your online presence.

This is a great way to monitor sentiment in real-time, but it only tells you half the story. It's just as important to set up regular reports that show any negative trends over time so businesses can strategically plan around customer needs and work on preemptively addressing potential issues before they even become problems!

Customer Data Use Case:

To better understand how your audience engages with content (video or blog posts, for example), you can collect this data by adding polls to each piece of content. This way, you'll know which pieces resonate most with your customers and what topics they want more information on moving forward.

  • Collecting customer data
  • Setting up reports; looking at trends
  • Responding to reviews & complaints in real-time; monitoring sentiment over time
  • Adding polls to content pieces (blog posts, videos) for better audience insights


An online presence with a strong, personalized message and the right keywords can be an effective way to reach your target audience. You must understand how customer data affects marketing strategy for both business owners and digital marketers. By following these five steps outlined in this blog post, you will have all of the knowledge needed to make smart decisions about your online marketing strategies in the future.