Marketing Intelligence

Marketing Intelligence: Different Kinds of Intelligence

The field of online marketing has grown to such an extent that it has become necessary for business owners and executives to develop a higher level of marketing intelligence. However, it can be difficult to determine a marketing intelligence definition, with all of the other similar terms out there. Here are a few:

Market Intelligence – Market intelligence refers to understanding your field and knowing general information about the market you wish to target. Many businesses will perform market research in order to gain better information about the needs of their clients or customers so that they can deliver better solutions.
Business Intelligence – Business intelligence could be considered an important component of an overall marketing intelligence system. Business intelligence covers the internal side of intelligence. This includes gathering information about past marketing campaigns and techniques, making comparisons, and drawing conclusions so that a better business plan can emerge.
Competitive Intelligence – Competitive intelligence in marketing holds the focus opposite of business intelligence by gathering information about a company’s competition. A competitive intelligence analyst will then analyze what direction the competition is headed and figure out what differentiates one company from its competition.
Marketing Intelligence – Marketing intelligence combines all these other intelligence venues so that businesses can receive the most comprehensive, yet focused intelligence, allowing them to market their products effectively. This is usually accomplished by increasing qualified online traffic, thereby increasing the number of qualified leads.

What is Marketing Intelligence?

Marketing intelligence is a growing industry that provides information to companies so that they can chart their marketing campaign accordingly. Some companies have the need for global marketing intelligence, which focuses on worldwide markets. Other companies only focus on the local market and any information that can be gathered there. In general, marketing intelligence consists of three components:

Internal Intelligence

Internal intelligence, or business intelligence, requires companies to look at their past successes and failures to determine patterns. It’s essentially an introspective look at strategies that have flourished and strategies that have not. Business-to-business marketing requires a high level of accountability, meaning that the business intelligence needs to stay current and accurate.

Analytics

Analytics allow businesses to compare their individual standing to the market at large. This requires internal intelligence to be compared to any competitive marketing intelligence. Analytics will analyze web rankings and traffic and determine any existing patterns. Many companies will utilize analytics programs such as Google Analytics, allowing them to draw from a variety of information rather than having to rely on data they gathered themselves.

Online Marketing Campaign

The next step after analytics is to begin building an online marketing campaign that will implement any changes that the analysis suggests is necessary.

Marketing Intelligence Research

Businesses just beginning to develop marketing intelligence and planning may be a little overwhelmed about where they should start. The research and analytics of marketing intelligence lay the foundation for future strategic marketing moves, so it’s important to start by gathering solid statistics from reliable sources.

Website Tracking – Installing a website tracking system on your homepage is an important part of gathering and tracking information about possible leads. Businesses can see patterns in website traffic and track the effects of any changes in content or design.
Search Engine Rankings – Search engine rankings and other SEO information can also tell you where your standing is with Google, which is an important element of digital marketing intelligence.
Content Tracking with Web Forms – Another way to track responses to your content is to add web forms to landing pages and PPC pages to gather more information about leads and clients. Web forms allow you to ask direct questions of the very people you are trying to target.
Social Media – Social media responses and mentions are an increasingly vital means to track your impact on the Internet community. Social media is an essential area for research, since a lot of information can be garnered from a profile, statuses, tweets and other information available.

How to Apply Marketing Strategies to Marketing Intelligence

Any business can use marketing strategies regardless of how well they work. However, a company that uses marketing strategies jointly with competitive intelligence and analysis will find that their strategies are far more effective.

Using social media profiles. Get a feel for what your leads require from your company. Analyze their profiles for this kind of information, and also look for common connections.
Getting to know leads through landing page forms. Landing page forms are flexible, allowing you to observe which offers your prospects are flocking to and which ones aren’t garnering that much attention. Forms also allow you to ask important questions that help you understand your current leads in particular and your target audience in general.
Tracking mentions on social media. A mistake that many businesses make is to track responses to their own social media content, but not pay any attention to mentions made by their followers. That can be a valuable resource and can help increase leads.
Creating content and measuring its value. Content is the new frontier for marketers, and it’s not hard to understand why. Internet users tend to go online for one thing: information. Company blogs, articles and landing pages will draw website traffic and allow companies to share their expertise at the same time.
Quick lead-response time. Responding quickly to leads will allow you to convert more into sales. Make sure you enable website notifications so that as soon as a lead is identified, it can be nurtured.

Sprint Marketing: Marketing Intelligence Services

Sprint Marketing is an online marketing company with solutions for B2B businesses. With our expertise marketing research and intelligence, we can help your company make more effective marketing decisions.

Our marketing intelligence reports analyze and report to the highest level of sales and lead data you can provide. If Salesforce or your current CRM (customer relationship management) is the highest level of sales and lead data you can provide, then you will receive reports that focus on marketing to leads analysis. If your customer database is the highest level of data available to you, then we can provide reports that focus on marketing to sales analysis.

Our marketing intelligence analysts can generate detailed reports that give you information on the following:

Sales Intelligence – Tap into the data you’ve accumulated from past sales to help you win future sales.
Lead Intelligence – The secret to leads isn’t to attract more, but to increase the number of qualified leads. Lead intelligence uses your accumulated lead statistics to identify ideal prospective leads and then to tailor your campaigns and content to appeal to those leads.
Website Intelligence – Website visitors and landing page conversion rates can provide pivotal insights into the effectiveness of your website strategy, which should in turn be the focal point of your overarching web marketing strategy.
Channel Intelligence – Learn whether your marketing channels are successfully reaching your target audience.

Get Your Own Free Leads Analysis to See How Sprint Marketing Can Improve Your Marketing Intelligence

Sprint Marketing uses a comprehensive marketing intelligence approach to combine sales intelligence, lead intelligence, website intelligence and campaign intelligence to boost your online traffic and increase your web leads. Contact us today for a free lead analysis to discover how we can improve your marketing intelligence.