Since the beginning of online marketing, the entire marketing sector has changed permanently. This is mainly due to the fact that much more information is accessible and can be incorporated into marketing in a timely manner. But what information has what value in marketing and how is the different information collected and processed?
Why information is so important in marketing
Ideally, marketing should achieve various goals at the same time. Good marketing makes the company better known and thus strengthens the brand. In addition, the sales figures and thus the economic strength of the company are to be improved through the various marketing measures. In order to achieve this in a targeted manner, marketing needs every relevant piece of information that is available on the market. The more information is available and can be used, the more accurate and efficient the individual measures and campaigns will be. A distinction is made between three different forms of information.
Internal information as the basis for planning
Internal information is first of all the information that comes from the company itself. This can be information about the company, but also information about products and services. This information can be used in marketing to generate content and create interesting content for campaigns. The more comprehensive and informative this content is, the greater its impact will be if it is read by the right people. However, these people or this target group cannot be derived from purely internal information.
External information to define the target group
For this purpose external information needed. New information becomes available through surveys, newsletter subscriptions and also details of the company's own customers, which show which customer groups are interested in the products or services in the first place. This is usually information that is voluntarily provided by customers or visitors or that can be provided by analysis tools such as Analytics. This information is used, among other things, to define buyer personae and thus target groups, for example, in order to provide interested parties along the customer journey with information and content.
Information generated to sharpen the measures
However, marketing itself also creates new information. Thanks to the various tracking possibilities, one's own measures can be improved and thus the information value increased. An example: A customer signs up for a newsletter and also provides his or her name, gender and age. This is external information. Through the newsletter and the customer's reactions to the newsletter, further information can be gathered. This creates a customer profile. This is important for individual marketing measures. But in the total number of these profiles, the target group can also be narrowed down more precisely or diversified. Thanks to the possibility of tracking links and thus actively following the paths of customers on one's own website, an enormous amount of information about interests, length of stay and other areas can be collected.
Economic information - how successful is the marketing
Also the economic level must not be disregarded. Because good marketing is characterised by the fact that the important key figures in sales increase and thus the campaigns have a significant value for the company. For this reason, marketing should also be included in these figures. With the information that can be obtained and used in this way, the experts can, among other things, change campaigns, optimise them or, in the worst case, stop them if the expected goals are not achieved.
Types of information
- factual information,
- prognostic information,
- explanatory information,
- conjunctive information,
- normative information,
- logical information.
Without the right information, marketing is powerless
As can be seen, effective marketing can hardly succeed without information of the most diverse kind. It would be blind shots in the dark, which rarely lead to success. Only thanks to the right information and also thanks to the targeted processing and use of the information can marketing fulfil the expectations set. Accordingly, the systematic procurement of information takes on a particularly important role in the field of marketing.
