My first series of posts will highlight the fundamental principles of digital marketing, which may seem obvious, but are so often overlooked. These principles have been developed from my experiences in this space and through networking with digital marketers from every corner of the world. No matter the experience or position it never ceases to amaze me the lessons we tend to forget on our journey to becoming “Digital Marketing Experts.”
Lesson 2 – Build Your Database
This is a lesson that many digital marketers find out the hard way. No matter what your product or service, or how far a long you are with developing your marketing plan it is never too early to start collecting customer data and building your database. To this day my most shocking business realization has been that not one of my professors in the many business courses I attended thought to bring up the importance of data collection. We often here about the data wars between the worlds largest tech companies, Google, Facebook, Apple, competing with each other to obtain the highest amounts of consumer information, but the collection of customer data is just as important to small businesses! Customer data if stored and organized correctly is a digital marketers most powerful tool.
Databases provide digital marketers with the ability to learn more about their customer base, allowing for the creation of new marketing strategies and revenue streams for your business. Give the right customer data to an experienced digital marketer and watch your business transform and grow. I can tell you from my 10+ years experience in this industry that the keys to your long-term success in any business is all in the data. It won’t seem obvious at first, but over time organizing and engaging your audience will create opportunities for your business that you would have just not discovered otherwise.
Think to yourself if you are currently missing an opportunity to collect vital customer data. I recommend signing up to a database management service today and beginning to build your database. There is no perfect time in your business growth cycle to begin this process, you can start right away.
I’ll be expanding on the power of customer databases and how digital marketers can best utilize them in future posts.
Confessions of a (Digital) Advertising Man 