How to Build a Marketing Information Management Strategy

Marketing information management is the process of managing and strategically using customer data, market research, and competitive intelligence gleaned from a variety of data sources. Extending beyond mere data management, a marketing information management strategy goes on to inform actual marketing decisions and inspire specific ad campaigns.

As part of a marketing information management strategy, a company’s marketing department gathers information on:

1. 1. Market conditions: Marketing teams research the leading players in their company’s industry, including how much market share they currently claim. They examine the state of the current market and see how many potential customers might be up for grabs.
2. 2. Market expansion: Decision-makers also seek to understand whether there may be a broader, unserved market that hasn’t yet been reached by other companies. They add these potential customers to their list of target markets.
3. 3. Internal sales information: Using internal data, marketing teams analyze their companies’ own sales metrics from past buying cycles.
4. 4. Website traffic: A company can track its own website traffic and the performance of its search engine optimization (SEO) efforts on a regular basis. If the company hosts an e-commerce platform, it can examine how often landing page visits led to sales conversions.
5. 5. Past marketing campaigns: The marketing team can review past marketing plans and campaigns, looking for successful case studies and internal insights into consumer behavior. This includes in-house ad campaigns and campaigns run by ad agencies.
6. 6. Digital marketing results: Companies can review past digital marketing efforts to see how much they helped the bottom line. Digital ad vendors offer their clients marketing intelligence on impressions and click-through rates.
7. 7. Email open rates: Direct email is a popular digital marketing channel, and many email clients show you open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber numbers. This can help marketing team members refine email marketing language.
8. 8. Focus groups: Marketing campaigns can gain actionable intelligence by conducting focus groups about product design, pricing, and customer pain points. The focus groups should be composed of the specific demographics the company views as its target audience.
9. 9. Customer reviews: A cache of customer reviews can offer clues about how a company’s existing products are resonating with its customer base.

Nearly all sectors of a company—not just the marketing department—can reap the benefits of marketing information management.

1. 1. Helps the sales team adapt: A mixture of company data and third-party data can help sales teams make forecasts about future revenue and staff up accordingly. It can also help retailers devise pricing strategies to meet the current marketing environment.
2. 2. Allows for better product development: Having access to company data lets product development departments strategically design new products and refine existing ones.
3. 3. Enables precise marketing: As for the marketing department itself, it can use past information to set marketing budgets, select marketing channels, and draft sales pitches.
4. 4. Shapes company strategy: Marketing information aids top-level decision-making by C-suite executives who must define the company mission, select initiatives, and maintain a competitive advantage over others in the marketplace. These executives use data from all their departments, but marketing data offers particular insight into what customers are thinking and what motivates their purchasing decisions.

You can build a marketing information management strategy in your own workplace by using the following template:

1. 1. Assemble a data management team. When building a marketing intelligence system, you must staff it with knowledgeable professionals who understand data analysis and can be trusted with sensitive information.
2. 2. Establish goals for your marketing information system. Determine what you hope to get out of your marketing information management system. Whether you want information on marketing strategies, market campaign tracking, product development, pricing strategies, expansion, or general market trends, you’ll need to lay them out in writing and share them across your marketing team.
3. 3. Name the metrics you will analyze. A marketing information management team can look at all sorts of key performance indicators (KPIs) within their marketing operations. Examples include sales conversions, ad click-through rates, social media subscribers, email list subscribers, and sales reports.
4. 4. Establish reporting mechanisms. Identify how you will report marketing information (such as weekly reports or quarterly reports), how you will disseminate it (such as in-person presentations or internal newsletters), and who on the team will receive the information. Your data collection only has value if your messaging system lets you effectively share the data with your team.
5. 5. Establish decision-making protocols. Once you have your marketing information database, you will need to find effective ways to make use of the information it contains. Establish a chain of command, employee roles, protocols, and workflows for turning gleaned marketing data into new strategic initiatives.

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