However impressive your product or service might be, if people don’t know that it exists, then you don’t have customers and in turn, you don’t generate revenue or profits. So, a good product speaks for itself only if an organization is effective at cementing its position in the market and creating a buzz for its product.
Marketing plays an immensely essential role in an organization’s revenue generation and growth be it a small/mid-size startup or a huge company. Effective Marketing initiatives help you to reach out to more people and convert potential leads into customers.
A few decades ago, Marketing campaigns were all about distributing pamphlets, advertising on newspapers, magazines, television, radio, providing free trials, etc. But now the channels of Marketing have diversified with the advent of the digital era.
3.8 billion people around the world have a smartphone and reaching out to people has never been easier but there is a catch- not everyone is your potential customer!
New Vs Old Marketing Channels
Traditional marketing channels were all about just reaching out to as many people as possible hoping that they might convert into a customer.
Hence, digital and radio advertisements were used to reach masses of people throughout a country. These campaigns required a lot of thought and resources. It required organizations to hire a large number of Sales and Marketing representatives, who could manually reach out to a large number of people.
The modern approach, on the other hand, is different and intuitive. It focuses on not just reaching out to people but on reaching out through digital channels to people who are more likely to purchase your product or services. These potential leads/prospects are identified through websites, social media, blogs, etc.
The concept is that if a person is going through your website there is a chance that he/she is interested in your products. Blogs and numerous other initiatives are designed to pitch products (Essentially explaining how a product or service is useful to the customer by stating the advantages over others).
Every single interaction by a person with the website is tracked and stored as data. This data is then analyzed to gain a holistic understanding of the customers, users, and your products. Social Media is used to engage existing customers and potential customers in the company’s development and growth loop.
Roles and Responsibilities of Marketing Analyst
Along with the Digital era, came the BigData era and that is when organizations recognized that the power of data can be harnessed into valuable information after some analysis. It all started with people manually pouring over sheets and sheets of data, making comparisons, recognizing trends and anomalies, etc.
Marketing Analysts were hired to make manual predictions of the data collected digitally. Then came the advent of Business Intelligence tools. They made the process of analyzing huge amounts of data and recognizing trends simple.
Now, the fundamental goal and aim of any Marketing Analyst is to understand the market and customers through in-depth research and analysis. So, a Marketing Analyst requires excellent analytical and communication skills. Let’s talk in detail about the various roles and responsibilities of a Marketing Analyst.
Gathering the Right Data
First, you have to identify the data that you need for a particular analysis. There will be multiple sources containing data, essential for analysis. You need to figure out a way to integrate data from various sources into a Data Warehouse to perform analysis using BI tools.
ETL tools can automate this transfer of data from one place to another. Hevo Data is a No-code Data Pipeline that is fully automated and can help you move data from multiple sources to BI tools.
Gathering Insights and Monitoring Metrics
Marketing Analysts should have knowledge of using BI & analytical tools and create informative visualization that helps monitor Marketing KPIs like Leads, Conversion Rates, Website Traffic, Sales, etc.
Monitoring this data will help you identify the areas that need work, the campaigns that are doing well, identify the rival market, opportunities, etc.
Suggesting Reforms
The insights that you gain from the analysis should be put to use for optimizing campaigns and websites. As a Marketing Analyst, you will help your organization understand where they can pour more resources and where they can cut back on unnecessary spending. You might also be responsible for building tools for better promotion.
Conclusion
The changes in the marketing industries are very dynamic and with it, the roles of a Marketing Analyst keep changing.
We are heading towards an era where all the analysis and monitoring will be automated by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms. What remains constant in this fast-paced world is learning and progress.
