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HOW BRANDS USE DATA TO CREATE SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS

Talitha Boitel-Gill our consultant managing the role
Author: Talitha Boitel-Gill
Posting date: 6/5/2019 3:31 PM
Make no mistake: making minor adjustments to an ad or campaign that’s meant to appeal to the masses just won’t cut it. Customers crave creativity. They want to be understood. Which is why people respond best to brands that do their homework, doing their research into what appeals to different groups.

How should businesses appeal to their chosen segments, then, considering how diverse people are? Data, of course.

Why Data? For one thing, it drives results and creates improved outcomes. Data also helps to prove the value of marketing, providing a bargaining chip for future budget discussions. And, most rewarding of all, brands get valuable insights into their target market. Which, in turn, leads to more well-targeted, profitable campaigns. 

And if you think Data doesn’t belong in the world of creative campaigns, think again. As OpenJaw Technologies Chief Marketing Officer Colin Lewis argues: “Creativity is not just compatible with being Data-driven – Data can drive better creative.”

Psychological profiling


Strategic communications consultancy, Verbalisation, researches and analyses language to form valuable insights. Using its Rapid Audience Insights Diagnostic system, the company’s team of psychologists and researchers work out how an audience thinks. They also learn the actual words an audience uses, which they then use as the basis of a marketing strategy. 

Based on their unique research and insights, Verbalisation has created several successful campaigns for high-profile brands. These include the #NotAnotherBrother campaign for counter-terrorism organisation Quilliam, which looked at the motivations of jihadists. 

The campaign is now used by the UN and schools across the UK, as well as the US Department of Defense. It is the most viewed counter-extremism campaign of all time, with more than half a billion global media impressions. 

Location, location, location


Out-of-home (OOH) advertising. Yes, it goes way back, but it’s actually the only traditional advertising channel posting rapid growth. In fact, thanks to mobile-location Data, brands can target audiences quicker and with a greater chance of success than ever before. 

Great news for JCDecaux (JCD), a leading OOH company with ads reaching 410 million people in over 4,000 cities. JCD now works with location Data to define and segment audiences. Doing so helps it decide where to place media, improve campaigns and measure resulting store footfall and purchases. 

Knowledge, so they say, is power. Particularly when that involves knowing the whereabouts of the most coveted customers. Newly teamed up with identity resolution company, Neustar, JCD’s insights look stronger than ever. JCD can now understand which of its locations rank higher for any brand’s most desired audiences. All thanks to location Data and real-time behaviour analysis. 

Personalised employee training


Data doesn’t just boost the results of B2C brands; it can also be a vital shot in the arm for internal security training campaigns. Training provider, CybeReady, for instance, uses a Data science-driven approach to deliver cyber awareness training with a difference: its anti-phishing platform helps security teams quickly roll out and tailor campaigns to individual employees.

In big companies, getting employees up to speed is especially challenging. With many locations, languages and time zones to contend with, Information Security teams have their work cut out. 

CybeReady eliminates these challenges by delivering 12 personalised, 60-second simulations to each employee. In their first language, every year. What’s more, the training provider uses machine learning to analyse performance on a daily basis. This enables it to provide the most appropriate simulations to each individual. The result? IT teams save 160 hours each month and employee resilience increases five-fold.

There’s no limit to what Data can do. If you’re a fan, we may have a role for you. Take a look at our latest opportunities or get in touch with our expert consultants.  

Related blog & news

With over 10 years experience working solely in the Data & Analytics sector our consultants are able to offer detailed insights into the industry.

Visit our Blogs & News portal or check out the related posts below.

National Storytelling Week: Telling A Story Through Data

A story is a lot more than just words on a page. It’s a combination of interesting language, images, colour and, perhaps most importantly, a brilliant narrator.  This is no different in Data Analytics. Like any story, the beginning of any data report starts out as numbers and figures on a page which, let’s face it, isn’t the most interesting read. To ensure the data reaches its full potential and entices an engaged audience, a good Data Analyst will wind and weave them into a compelling story.  So, how might you go about doing this? Know your audience How your story is crafted will be completely dependent on who will be reading it. It’s important to consider your audience’s age, knowledge and expertise. For example, if you were reporting to a junior team, the information given will be simplified, and specific language and jargon should be broken down to include explanations, making the data accessible. The story may also be a lot longer than usual to ensure all areas of information are covered, with room for questions if need be. This is crucial if you want your data, and your story, to benefit the learning and development of the team as well as to encourage their interest and curiosity in the topic.  On the other hand, if you were telling your data story to a group of expert professionals, the explanations will be a lot more top line and the story much pithier and succinct. The depth should instead lie in the narrative of how the data impacts them and their company, providing solutions to problems or providing compelling ideas for innovation and change.  Choose an engaging narrative Undoubtedly, your data will have thrown up all sorts of storylines, from the mundane to the thrilling. When you’re creating your presentation or report, if the data is relevant, opt to design your story around the most exciting dataset. Your aim is to keep your audience engaged and wanting to know more, not to bore them with too many, or figures that are not relevant or provide further guidance.  Be creative No matter how electrifying your data may be, there's only so much information an individual can take in. Your story needs visuals to bring what you are reporting on to life. Typography, font and font size, colour, images, graphs and tables are all valuable assets to include to help stimulate your audience’s imagination.  Of course, in this day and age, these visuals don’t have to be limited to static pictures either. Don’t be afraid to play around with movement and interactivity to get your audience involved and engaged. That being said, it’s important to find a good balance of static and interactive. Be an appealing narrator If you’re having to present your data, you’ve got an extra challenge on your plate. Your story is only as good as you are. No matter how visually fantastic your report is, or how apt it is for your audience, if you are bored, unengaged and uninterested by the information you are presenting, you will pass all these feelings onto your audience.  Not only is it important you know the story you’re telling inside out, but you should be excited by the data you are presenting. Don’t be afraid to inject personality into your data, make it characteristic and make it feel human. If you are passionate about your data and your story, then your audience will be too.  Data doesn’t just have to be statistics on a page. It can be thrilling, it can be colourful, it can be loud, and it can be enticing. You, as a Data Analyst, are that brilliant narrator.  If you're looking to take the next step in your career or build out your Data & Analytics, we may be able to help. Take a look at our latest opportunities or get in touch with one of our expert consultants to find out more. 

India Walker-Smith

India Walker-Smith

04. February 2021

The Evolution Of CRM Marketing – A Q&A With Catherine Allan

We recently spoke to Catherine Allan, an Associate Director of CRM at Babylon health, a Digital healthcare service with a mission to put accessible and affordable health service into the hands of everyone.  After starting her career in journalism, Allan moved into Marketing, a seemingly natural transition given her copywriting experience. Given the transformation in technology and the use of Data within Marketing, she has seen the significant impact that it has had within the space.  Reflecting on what attracted her into CRM Marketing in the first place, she explains, “It’s that ability to really get to know the audience, what they look like. You have a very defined group of people that you can look at exactly how they are responding – you can get to know their likes, dislikes and respond to them in ways that you can engage them more. You can keep them working with or using your product or organisation”.  Initially working for Ten Lifestyle Group, her clients varied from travel businesses to large financial brands. Like many at the time, they had their traditional methods but, as would soon become a trend within the industry, they started to change things up. Allan expands, “We started experimenting with CRM with the members of our concierge to see if we could. How much better would those people respond to tailored communication over those who received a newsletter of generic stuff?”. Enter the use of Data to tailor CRM offerings. Their first application was to their travel clients, “If we knew someone had a skiing holiday versus a holiday in September one year, we would follow up the following year. Isn’t it time to pick a holiday?”. It seems natural now, but it signified that shift from the mass-communication to segmented customer profiles.  As Marketing teams became more Data-driven, however, customers had to get used to that change of communication. Allan remembers the shift well, “When I first started in CRM, it wasn’t personalised at all but I started to see that people got more used to you knowing their Data and using it. It became less freaky to show that you knew something about them. At the beginning, we were having to be careful about how much we evidenced that we knew, you couldn’t really say I know you’ve had a Ski Holiday. But over the course of the years people have started to expect that, almost like it would be weird if marketeers didn’t know that. The culture towards that use of Data and personalisation has changed”.   However, she explains, there is a limit, “With what people are expecting from your CRM, there is a scaling to how you present stuff. You don’t want to be creepy, you don’t want to overstep it by knowing too much”.  Now, moving into the health-tech space at Babylon, her work revolves around the products that they have on the market. Everything from applications that allow you to log your mood and sync your wearable tech, through to a health check function where you’re given a digital twin of your body. The use of Data within these products is, of course, on another level. The products produce Data-driven recommendations that are very specific to each users. She explains, “obviously in the Marketing team we don’t have access to people’s health records or any health information which they input into the app. So it’s about finding the right cadence to actually engage people with the product, as well as personalising using the Data we can see, such as demographics. Men and women have different health concerns and they differ for younger and older age groups.” Moving into the health space has opened up a different way of engaging with customers. Allan and her team were able to use their Data and produce newsletters that actually engaged their audience on a wider basis. She expands, “We found great success in sending regular newsletters just about health in general, people love to know how they compare to other people and they also want to know to be empowered to manage their own health”.  Naturally, a company like Babylon feel the pressures of a global pandemic in what their customers expect from them to say and do. This is exactly what Allan’s team are now focused on. “When the pandemic came to the UK, as a healthcare company the first thought for the Marketing team was how can we support our members? What can we offer which is unique to Babylon which will add value. The answer we came to was offering information, guides and videos verified by doctors to counteract all those false stories out there about COVID-19”.  Despite the technology to innovate, with things like interactive emails and unique content, there was still a need to strip things back. As Allan explains, “people are anxious, they are worried, they just want the right information, you’ve already got their attention”.  Her team was responsible for launching this new product to members and developing lifestyle communications, whilst also keeping the members engaged and updated. Naturally, the communication during the pandemic shifted, “We upped our newsletter frequency from twice a month to twice a week for the first three weeks of lockdown, then down to once a week, a cadence which we are still maintaining with no drop off in interest” What were the results of these changes? “Our open rates went up, our click through rates went up and our unsubscribes reduced, although they were very low to start with) We reduced sends to once a week when we felt that there was less to say, which I think was better than continuing to send more and becoming boring. Our results over the last 6 weeks have been off the charts averaging a 34% open rate across the whole base of subscribers vs the 24% we were averaging before.”  It’s clear that regardless of industry, from lifestyle to healthcare, the world of CRM has progressed. The information that we gather on customers is evolving, as is the way that we can speak to those customers too. One thing is clear however, from Allan’s experience, especially in the current circumstances, nothing takes away from a clear message.  If you’re looking for your next CRM role or to build out your team, Harnham may be able to help. Take a look at our latest opportunities or get in touch with one of our expert consultants to find out more. 

Talitha Boitel-Gill

Talitha Boitel-Gill

04. June 2020

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