Data is more important than ever, and while everyone wants as much information as they can collect, it’s only useful if you can trust it, spread it across your decision-makers, and make decisions based on that data.
Over the past year, the internal marketing team at 3 Media Web has been sharply focused on improving our data and creating shared dashboards across all our teams. While everyone loves a flashy dashboard with slick data visualizations––in dark mode, of course––they’re only powerful if you can trust the data going into them.
Here’s why data has been such a big priority for our marketing team and the business as a whole for the past year:
Review and Optimize Your Data Foundation
Before you start changing how your data flows across your business or building fancy dashboards that look prettier than a sports car on an open road, you have to take stock of your current data foundation. Especially if you use a robust and powerful CRM tool, such as HubSpot, you may only be scratching the surface of what your data could be doing for you and your team.
What data is going into your CRM? How accurate is it once it’s in there? If there are different fields like lead source and demographic information on potential customers, is that data accurate and in the right place? Once the data is in there, are there any automation or workflows to help the team act on that data? Before moving on with any changes to your data or your business, make sure that you can trust a single data source as the truth across all teams.
Create Shared Definitions With Your Team
How do you classify a sales-qualified lead (SQL)? When does a marketing qualified lead (MQL) turn into an SQL? You and your marketing team might have one idea of the definitions of common terms, but the sales team might have a completely different picture of what SQL and MQL mean.
After you assess the data coming in and out of your business, ensure all your different teams are properly aligned on the definition of each data point and KPI. That way when one team reports on their progress, other stakeholders can have a better understanding of what’s actually happening within the business and make better decisions accordingly.
Build Proactive Data Dashboards (And Share With Everyone)
Making better, data-driven decisions only happens if everyone is looking at the same data. Anyone familiar with presenting data knows that how you slice and dice the data greatly impacts how it is received. There could be an even greater disparity if one team is skilled at data visualization while others rely only on shorthand notes.
Create robust data dashboards in a tool that everyone understands and share it across all of your different teams. Having accessible data at all times, across every team member, helps to make decisions faster, and make them more accurately. This also helps managers or leadership teams focus on their initiatives rather than having to check in manually with stakeholders.
Better Data Can Help Build A Better Business Online
Every sales and marketing team dreams of beautiful, robust data dashboards that help them make the right decisions every time, but without the right data going into your systems and a shared definition for every data point or KPI coming out, the data visualizations aren’t very useful. We’ve been spending the past year getting a better handle on the health of our data because data is crucial for any business, especially businesses growing online.