The concept of data influencing design is not new. Basic web usage data from click tracking to user surveys has informed us of the most successful navigation styles. Heat mapping with smart actionable content has directed us on the best place to position and design a call to action. And there are other practices that have been employed as well. So, while there are numerous instances of data driving design, what is new to the world of growth marketing is the quality and type of data that is now available. Think sentiment tracking, social listening, geo-economic and behavioral science data. These options for accessing and parsing data have taken the simple concept of data-driven design to the growing heights of intelligence-driven creative.
Beginning your growth marketing journey?
The goal of intelligence-driven creative is to get closer to an individual target consumer with compelling and relevant content that has a greater chance of changing that individual’s behavior. This is by no means a perfect science, it’s actually performed through a process of trial and error, except that trial and error form of experimentation can now be completed with the support of Artificial Intelligence (AI). But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This process begins with the gathering of relevant data and information from many areas.
Brand Ownership
All content and channels need to stay true to the brand strategy. Even if a new channel pops up promising the world, it will dilute your brand authenticity and modern day consumers will sniff that out in a second, costing you brand credibility.
Product Roadmap
Providing a front row seat to the future of your products will allow you to excite and prepare your customers for what they can expect. If done correctly, this will generate demand for the next generation of your product.
Behavioral Science
The customer journey from the perspective of time of day, focus on a particular channel and aggregated audience data has evolved to a more sophisticated mix of human characteristics. This involves an appreciation and understanding of the process a consumer’s brain moves through when making a decision. The consumer may begin to identify a need in their life, that leads to thinking about a product or category of products, to learning more about the products available, to being convinced about the right product for them, to finally deciding on their purchase or selection decision. When you match user personas to this style of journey map, you start off from a target that is a much closer match with content that is significantly more likely to change a consumer’s behavior.
Intelligent-data
Through a mix of external and internal data, we are able to build an intelligent and actionable data set. What kinds of data will benefit the creative team? With external data types like social listening, Marketers are able to understand how the sentiment of their messages are perceived, if their brand is seen as trustworthy, and if their brand values are understood and agreed with. Internal data types, some of which may be considered within the realms of a brand or company’s Intellectual Property (IP) include customer service logs, and potentially purchase history and shopping preferences.
Creative Brief
Armed with this combination of information, Marketers, Content and Channel Strategists as well as Creative Directors are able to develop deeply insightful, powerful and actional creative briefs. Creative briefs that will be designed to drive highly targeted, decision changing behaviors during each and every consumer interaction. These new types of active content and assets are designed with individual customer profiles in mind turning the old style of ‘Pick me!’ creative into ‘Relevant’ creative.
Relevant content and creative are at the center of customer micro-interactions that are driving the promise of Growth Marketing forward. The ability to understand where your consumer is in their customer journey and the technology to deliver content and assets that have been designed with relevancy to their customers’ current and future mindset, will provide marketers true power to maximize their marketing efforts while turning each customer into a brand advocate.
