The recipe for making your data speak through data storytelling

The recipe for making your data speak through data storytelling

Companies have never had so much data at their disposal as they do today. The challenge now is to fully exploit this precious asset.

How can you transform your raw data into actionable insights to boost your business?

In a word, how do you make your data speak?

This is the art of "data storytelling", a structured approach that goes from collection to activation, to bring out the hidden intelligence in your data.

Why is this approach essential today? What are the key steps to follow? Discover our tips for becoming a data storytelling pro!

What is data storytelling?

"Data storytelling" is the art of "making data speak". But what does that actually mean?

It's about implementing a strategy to get the most out of your customer data, at every stage of its lifecycle.

The goal of data storytelling is to transform your raw data into information that is usable and meaningful for your business. In other words: putting data at the service of business, activity, and marketing.

Why is data storytelling essential?

Data storytelling is no longer an option, it's a necessity for any company that wants to stay ahead in the all-digital era.

By adopting a structured and agile data storytelling approach to orchestrate your data, you give yourself the means to extract its full potential. And it has become a key factor of differentiation and performance for companies.

The use cases are multiple:

• Improve customer knowledge to personalize experiences
• Optimize your operations and reduce costs
• Develop new data\-driven products and services
• Make better decisions, faster and with less risk
• Foster innovation and identify new growth drivers

These are all levers that make data storytelling a sustainable competitive advantage for your company.

And this trend will only accelerate with the democratization of artificial intelligence. To take advantage of it, it's important to put the right data processes in place now!

The 7-step recipe for making your data speak

Now that you're convinced of the importance of data storytelling, all you have to do is get started! But where to begin? Follow our step-by-step guide to implement an effective data strategy and finally make your data speak.

1. Define your marketing objectives

Before diving headfirst into exploiting your data, take the time to clarify your marketing objectives. What are your business priorities? Recruiting new customers, reactivating dormant customers, building loyalty with your best buyers?

Once your objectives are defined, you can identify the targets to prioritize and the levers to activate. For example, you can choose to relaunch your inactive customers with a special offer by email, or reward your ambassadors with a tailored program.

Your marketing objectives will also guide the choice of your communication channels. At Actito, we always recommend favoring your contacts' preferences to maximize engagement. The key is to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time and through the right channel!

Don't forget that marketing segmentation is your best ally for reaching your goals. Your data strategy should help you build relevant and actionable segments.

2. Identify your data sources

Now that you know where you want to go, you can move on to the next step: taking inventory of your available data. And good news, you surely have a gold mine at your fingertips!

We generally distinguish 3 main categories of data to combine:

• First-party data, which you collect directly at the various points of contact with your customers: website, stores, call centers, mobile apps… This is the most valuable data, as it reflects your customers' real interactions with your brand. It generally includes profile information (name, email, address…), transactional data (purchase history) and behavioral data (pages viewed, clicks…).
• Second-party data, which comes from your partners. Imagine you're an airline partnering with a hotel chain to offer combined deals. By sharing your respective data, you can enrich your customer knowledge and expand your audience with qualified profiles. Second-party data is based on a give-and-take logic.
• Third-party data, purchased from specialized external providers. This can include socio-demographic databases, propensity scoring or purchase intent data. However, be sure to carefully check the quality and compliance of this third-party data, especially with regard to GDPR. And keep in mind that your competitors may also have access to it!

The work of mapping all your data sources will allow you to identify those that are the richest and most relevant to your business. This is an essential first step towards a high-performing data storytelling strategy.

3. Define the use of your data

Once your data sources are identified, you need to define how you will concretely use them. This is the time to put your marketing objectives back on the table.

For each objective, list the data you will need at each stage of the customer journey. For example, to recruit new customers, you will likely need to collect contact information (email, phone…), demographic data (age, location…) and interests to personalize your messages.

You can classify these different uses into 3 main categories:

• Contacting your targets: this is the basic information for getting in touch with your prospects or customers, such as email, phone number, mailing address or channel preferences. Make sure you have your contacts' consent in accordance with GDPR.
• Qualifying and segmenting your audiences: this is all the data that will allow you to refine your customer knowledge and create homogeneous segments. This includes socio-demographic data, profile information (socio-professional category, family status…), purchasing habits or engagement score.
• Personalizing your messages: to create tailored and engaging communications, you need to leverage granular data about your contacts: their latest purchases, products viewed on your site, browsing history, etc. All this information is valuable for adapting your content.

As you can see, the more relevant data you have about your customers or prospects, the more you can orchestrate ultra-personalized and effective campaigns. This is one of the core convictions of any data storytelling strategy.

4. Qualify your data

Before using your data, you need to ensure it is reliable, up-to-date and usable.

To do this, we recommend conducting a complete audit of your databases. The goal is to comb through your data to identify any anomalies and inconsistencies: duplicates, missing fields, invalid email addresses…

Once this assessment is done, it's time for the big clean-up! Remove duplicates, correct errors, standardize formats. It's painstaking work, but essential to sanitize your database. At Actito, we provide dedicated tools to facilitate these time-consuming operations.

But data storytelling is not just about cleaning up, it's also about enriching and refining your customer knowledge.

There are many qualification tactics for this:

• Offer your contacts to complete their profile in exchange for an attractive offer (guide, discount…).
• Launch surveys or polls to learn more about their expectations and needs.
• Analyze their behavior on your site and communications to infer their interests.
• Cross-reference your CRM data with external sources like social networks.
• …/…

5. Structure your data

To effectively use your data, you need to structure it in a logical and consistent way. This is the key to making it actionable in your marketing tools.

At Actito, we recommend organizing your data in separate tables (profiles, purchases, events…) and defining relationships between these tables via primary and foreign keys. This is called the relational schema of your database.

A well-designed schema allows you to build a 360° view of your contacts and their history. This way you can track every interaction, every purchase, every key event in the customer journey.

6. Activate your data

Is your data ready to use? Then it's time for action! With data storytelling, you have all the ingredients to orchestrate ultra-personalized and engaging customer journeys.

The principle is simple: you define automated marketing scenarios that intelligently leverage your data. Each scenario is triggered by a specific event (registration, purchase, inactivity…) and activates a series of actions tailored to each contact's profile and behavior.

For example, you can send a personalized welcome email after a signup, offer a targeted discount after a cart abandonment, or reactivate your inactives with a special deal. All of this in an automated yet customized way. Welcome to the world of marketing automation.

7. Challenge your data

Data storytelling is not a smooth ride. To stay effective, you need to continually challenge and optimize your data strategy. It's a long-term effort that requires rigor and agility.

We recommend setting up test & learn routines to regularly measure your results and identify areas for improvement. Each campaign is an opportunity to question yourself and progress.

At Actito, we provide ultra-comprehensive reporting to monitor your key indicators (engagement rate, ROI…). We also organize regular performance reviews to challenge your actions and find new growth levers.

Finally, remember to continuously update and enrich your data. Data is living material, subject to entropy. Organize regular qualification campaigns to update your contacts' information and preferences. This is essential to maintain a healthy and efficient database over time.

The future of data storytelling according to Actito

At Actito, we are convinced that data storytelling has a key role to play in helping companies get the most out of their customer data. And this is just the beginning! We anticipate a rapid democratization of this approach, driven by the combined effect of several underlying trends.

First, the explosion of data volumes will accelerate in the coming years, especially with the development of connected objects. Companies will more than ever need to be able to process this data in real time to extract actionable insights. Data storytelling will be a must to make sense of this mass of information.

At the same time, there is strong regulatory pressure on the use of personal data. With laws like GDPR or CCPA, companies must implement more transparent and privacy-friendly data management policies. Here again, data storytelling can help build a relationship of trust with customers by showing them how their data is valued.

Another trend to watch is the convergence of data science and marketing automation. Marketing automation tools like Actito are increasingly integrating AI bricks to optimize customer journeys in a predictive way. In return, machine learning algorithms need qualified customer data to train on. This data/marketing synergy will clearly become a powerful engine of innovation and growth for companies.

Finally, data storytelling will play a key role in the democratization of data culture within organizations. Making insights accessible to business teams and involving them in building use cases accelerates the adoption of data-driven decision making. This is a key challenge in the digital age, where agility and speed of execution make the difference.

Key takeaways

Data storytelling is emerging as the missing link to exploit the full richness of your customer data. By structuring your approach from end to end, from collection to activation, you give yourself the means to build tailored experiences and optimize your business performance.

But beware, successful data storytelling cannot be improvised! It requires asking the right questions at each stage, relying on diverse technical and business skills, and continuously iterating to keep up with market changes.

It's a demanding path, but one that is highly rewarding for creating value. So, are you ready to unleash the potential of your data and deploy your storytelling strategy?

Want to master the art of data storytelling?