Optimizing Brand Performance with Cross-Channel Data Integration

If you're curious about what really grabs your customers' attention and has them spending more money on your products and services, this article is a must-read.

First of all, you’ll learn about why collecting data from different channels, and making cross-channel data integration a part of your business strategy, is the secret sauce to increasing your brand’s revenue.

You'll also find out:

- Which channels to scour for data in order to optimize your brand's performance

- Which data to collect

- Which tools to use on that quest

- Which brand performance optimization practices you can benefit from.

Sounds good?

Let's dive in, then.

1. How Brand Performance Benefits From Integrated Data

Say you're reading this because you're a company owner.

Any  kind of company will do, but we'll make an assumption that yours is quite successful at what it's doing.

If you're, indeed, successful, you likely already have access to a wealth of data about your customers, including:

- who visits your stores, offline and online

- who follows you on social media

- how people make purchases from you, and

- what they're saying about your brand on review sites.

Are we correct?

You have it, because you know that each of these data sources gives you one piece of the puzzle. The more sources you look at, the clearer your picture of a customer's journey becomes.

Let's look at this through an example.

For instance, if you're curious about how customers discover your store and what prompts them to leave positive reviews or buy, you'd need to look at channels like Facebook advertising metrics, website analytics, in-store customer tracking, and online review platforms to track their journey.

In other words, you'd need to collect data from various channels.

Then, once you have this data, to have it significantly benefit your brand's performance, revenue and reputation, you'll need to integrate it into your marketing and business strategies.

When done right, you'll see improvements in customer value, your ROI, and conversion rates.

2. The Limitations of Single-Platform Data Collection

Try finding a single consumer who only interacts with a brand through one platform—it's like searching for a needle in a haystack!

Relying solely on one platform for data collection limits a company's insight into their customers' behavior and preferences.

Why? Because there's a whole spectrum of interactions happening on other platforms that you're missing out on by being so narrowly focused.

Apart from that, data from a single source is much easier to skew and is often biased. This means that the conclusions you draw from that data might end up being inaccurate.

This actually happens quite often when a brand focuses heavily on social media, but forgets to track customer purchasing behavior on e-commerce platforms

What ends up happening is that social media regularly shows high engagement, which is great for brand visibility, but e-commerce platforms show that those likes and comments aren't necessarily translating into actual purchases.

If your end goal is conversion and revenue increase - aka brand performance optimization, then this approach simply isn't sufficient.

3. Choosing the Right Channels for Your Brand Performance Optimization

Now that we've covered why collecting data from multiple channels is necessary for improving your brand performance, the question is:

How do you decide which channels are right for your brand?

There are two ways you could go – the traditional and the alternative way.

Let's see what that actually means.

1. Traditional Data Channels

When we use the term "traditional", we don't mean "offline" data channels.

Instead, we mean channels that are already commonly used and well-established for data collection. These include, but are not limited to:

- Social media platforms

- Websites

- Press releases

- Review portals

- Publicly available surveys and polls.

These channels offer a wealth of data and are often the first choice for many brands when it comes to collecting customer insights. However, relying solely on one may limit your ability to gather diverse and comprehensive data about your audience.

Still, here's what they can be used for:

1. Surveys and Pools

Surveys and polls are fantastic for gathering structured data about user preferences, opinions, and behaviors.

Simply ask your audience a few targeted questions, and you'll receive direct feedback on their thoughts.

However, it's important to be aware of response bias with these methods, and the depth of information you gather may be too limited for brand performance optimization.

2. Social media platforms

Social media platforms are great for connecting with a global audience, increasing brand awareness, and gaining real-time insights about your customers.

The data you collect from social media can be incredibly valuable for understanding trends, sentiment, and customer preferences.

It can reveal how your audience perceives and interacts with your brand, helping you identify popular products, effective marketing strategies, and areas for improvement.

3. Press Releases

Press releases can be used as a tool for data collection by monitoring the media coverage and reactions they generate.

This can provide insights into how your brand is perceived by the media and the public, as well as help you gauge the effectiveness of your messaging and PR strategies for brand announcements and events.

However, it's important to note that press releases have limitations and may not always accurately reflect public opinion or sentiment due to various influencing factors.

4. Review Portals

Review portals are another valuable source of data for understanding customer sentiment and perception of your brand.

Monitoring reviews can help you identify areas where your brand is excelling and where there is room for improvement.

Additionally, collecting data from these portals can help you identify negative reviews that may be the result of fake or counterfeit products or those written by competitors.

This allows you to take steps towards addressing these issues and mitigating the damaging impact of such reviews.

5. Search Engines

Last but certainly not least, search engines are the goldmines for sourcing brand-related data.

Think about it: when you type a query into Google, you're typically expressing a specific need or interest.

Your customers are doing the same in relation to your brand.

By tapping into their searches relevant your brand, products, or industry, you're essentially getting direct feedback on what your audience is interested in or what problems they're currently facing.

This kind of data collection could provide you with insight on new trends people are searching for, which may help you, let's say, with a new product launch.

Cha-ching!

2. Alternative Data Channels

To achieve a 360-degree customer view and effectively cater to it, you must explore beyond conventional channels.

See, customers don't think in terms of channels; they switch between them effortlessly. That's why integrating data from multiple channels is key to providing a seamless and consistent experience.

Having said that, here are our top 3 alternative channels you should scour for data. They will help you gain a deeper understanding of your customers, personalize your offers, and get the best bang for your marketing buck:

1. E-Commerce Platforms

E-Commerce platforms are go-to places for brands who want to know what their customers want before even they do.

In fact, they are one of the rare ethical opportunities you'll get to take a peak at your customer's shopping cart and learn what their buying habits and checkout hesitations are.

Reputeo even has a way to scour for brand-related keywords across difficult e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress, thanks to its algorithm that can go through captcha and other login forms.

Cool, huh?

2. NFT Marketplaces

To collect insights that aren't just current but predictive of future shifts in consumer behavior, your brand must go beyond average social media spaces crowded with the general public.

NFT Marketplaces are one of those places, brimming with trendsetters, early adopters, and those shaping the future.

There, you can find what's cool before it's cool, identify new patterns that are yet to become mainstream, as well as influencers and opinion leaders, and use that to stay ahead of the curve.

3. Forums and Online Communities

Forums like Reddit and Quora are the places where all the magic happens.

They're the places where people speak their minds openly and freely, offering raw, unfiltered insights into what's working for them and what's not.

And the best thing about these forums?

They're filled with tons of communities related to virtually every industry, niche, or sector, allowing brands to conduct incredibly targeted market research and gauge public opinion on a wide range of topics.

4. Key Data to Collect for Brand Performance Optimization

As we're nearing the end of this article, we're asking you: Are you ready to take a peak at the Crème de la crème of data that can spice up your brand's performance?

If you are, then keep reading!

1. Brand Mentions

Want to know how much noise your brand is making in the market at any given time?

Then you need to track your brand mentions. Both good and the bad ones.

Regarding positive mentions, acknowledge them and respond to them with gratitude. Use them to show your customers that you value their support and you'll be rewarded with more engagement.

As for the negative brand mentions, first determine whether they are justified or a result of unethical competitor practices.

Justified negative feedback often presents an opportunity for improvement, while unethical practices may require a different approach.

If you’re facing the latter, consider documenting the evidence and taking legal action, as incorrect brand data has been reported to deter approximately 86% of customers from repeat purchases.

2. Trademark (Mis)use

Your brand's identity is one of its most important assets, sprotecting it should be your priority.

Tracking where and how it is used, copied or misused is the only way for you to be able to take appropriate legal action.

Why is it important?

Because you need to ensure our customers know the real from the fake, if you want them to trust your brand and continue to engage with it.

3. Brand Reviews

Brand reviews are a great way for your company to find out what they're doing right and where they're room to grow.

Unlike sales data, which only shows the outcome, brand reviews show direct customer sentiment. You can use this to improve your offerings to your customers' likings and better meet their expectations.

In the event that you run into fake brand reviews, aka those resulting from fake products and counterfeit sales, you can use this data to take prompt action against the unauthorized sellers.

This is important as negative reviews can easily tarnish your brand's reputation and erode trust among your customers.

And you don't want that, do you?

4. Social Media Engagement

Likes, shares, and comments are the currency of social media.

If you've got them, you're the popular kid in the school. If you use them wisely, you can become even more popular.

For instance, if one of your social media postings go viral, you can turn it into series. If it flops, you'll know it's time for a new strategy.

Pro tip: To get a more accurate picture on customer behavior, supplement social media engagement data with data from website analytics, such as conversion rates, bounce rates, and time spent on page.

5. Sales and Conversion Data

At the end of the day, it all comes down to whether you're in the green - or in trouble!

Sales are the bread and the butter of your business, meaning that you need to get your sales data before making decisions about adjusting your inventory, marketing, and maybe even your product design.

Conversion data, on the other hand, tells you how successful your marketing efforts are in converting leads into customers. By analyzing conversion rates, you can identify areas where your marketing funnel may be leaking and take steps to improve it.

Together, these two pieces of data give you a comprehensive view of your brand's performance and help you make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategies for better results.

5. The Cross-Channel Data Integration Tools and Practices for Brand Performance Optimization

Now that you've got all your data in one place, you make decisions that aren't just smart but Sherlock-level smart.

You can connect the dots between what your customers are saying on social media, how they behave on your website, and what they actually buy.

On this journey, you'll need just four things:

- A Brand Watchdog platfrom to collect data about your data, act like a sieve that separates genuine stuff from the noise, and tell you what to do with that data.

- An analytics platform to crunch the numbers and make sense from the data you've collected.

- A CRM system to keep track of every interaction with your customer.

- A Data Management Platform to organize and categorize your data until it's time to use it.

In other words, to optimize your brand's performance, you'll need to ensure your cross-channel data is clean, organized, secure, and well-integrated.

Reputeo can help you with the tracking and the priproty assessment part, as well as act as your trusty sidekick in your process of reputation management. To find out more about how we do it, book a demo today.

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