Identifies the most important data

We've all heard salesy phrases and trendy slogans like "Data is king," "Big data," "Put your data to work," and others.

We know that customer information is really important and critical to our success. But the fact is that with so much data flooding in, we don't always know what to do, where to start and how to approach it.

It's time to look beyond spreadsheets, charts and graphs, and focus on what that information represents: your audience's behavior. It's their likes, dislikes and activities. And when you humanize the data and view it through that lens, it's much easier to identify what's really important to your organization.

62% of marketers report often feeling "overwhelmed" by the volume of information they possess.

In the world of email marketing we tend to obsess about opens and clicks. And rightly so, they are the most direct indicators of whether an email campaign was successful or not. But take it a step further and look at the end goal of that particular campaign.

Only 12% of marketers are able to say that their email marketing strategy is fully integrated with other information systems.

For example, among those who opened your message, what percentage took advantage of the sale or downloaded the guide you offered?

And of the people who downloaded the guide, how many signed up for your service?

You can learn a lot more about your audience (and your marketing) when you can scratch the surface. This way, you can link your efforts to actual business results and understand how your email marketing strategy is contributing to the organization's success.

But you can't do this if your marketing and data live in silos. When your data is integrated (think email marketing + CRM, email marketing + Google Analytics, or email marketing + your ecommerce system), you'll get a more complete view of subscriber activity, and your marketing challenges will be easier to solve over time.

Once you've identified the metrics that matter and established a way to track them, it's time to start testing.

What can you try? The subject line of your messages is the best place to start. Writing a great subject line is one of the most difficult tasks in email marketing. After all, there is nothing more frustrating than creating an email campaign that you think is a winner and then seeing it get lost because of a bad subject line that didn't motivate anyone to open the message. So test different subject lines with small portions of your audience and send the best one to the rest of your list.

You can test with small modifications in different elements of your communication piece, from the sending times to the call to action. The important thing is that you only test one thing at a time, so that you can be 100% sure which variable impacted the results.

When you test and let the data lead the way, what you are doing is listening to your audience. Every mailing becomes an opportunity to learn more about them, which is vital when you're looking to move fast and maximize your results.

QUICK TIPS:

1. Look beyond open and click-through rates and focus on the ultimate goal of your email campaign.

2. Integrate your marketing systems to obtain a complete profile of each subscriber.

3. Implement a strategy