What is Data Marketing Communications? In today’s world Data is everything. What Data Marketing Communications excels at, is taking a wealth of data and working to find the metric within that matters, the metric that tells the story. Data is at the heart of the marketing communications industry and having the ability to be a data-driven storyteller is a highly sought-after skill set at any level.
Data Marketing Communications is often referred to as data-driven marketing communications. It is the practice of using data to guide and optimize marketing efforts and communication strategies. When marketers can understand the data, they can better understand their target audience, personalized messages and measuring the effectiveness of campaigns. All of this leads to marketers being able to make informed decisions to improve future marketing activities.
Here are some key components of data marketing communications:
- Audience Segmentation: Using data to divide the audience into segments based on demographics, behaviors, interests and more, allows for more tailored and relevant communication
- Personalized Messaging: Data plays a major role in creating personalized messages that resonate with individual customers. This can greatly improve engagement and conversion rates.
- Targeted Campaigns: When marketers effectively analyze the data, they than can identify the best channels, times, and messages to reach their audience, ensuring their marketing efforts are as efficient and effective as possible.
- Performance Measurement: A crucial part of marketing is understanding what is working and what isn't. Data-driven marketing can achieve this by tracking and analyzing key performance indicators like click-through rates, conversion rates, and ROI’s.
What Does being a Data-Driven Marketer Mean?
Data-driven marketers can effectively determine who they should target, how they should target them and when.They are able to know this by studying the customers. They study what customers buy, how they react to advertisements and how they behave on their websites and social media accounts. It's the who, what, when, and where of marketing. Now when one thinks of the term “Data” they instantly think of math and statistics, but being data-driven doesn’t mean you will be studying business analytics or data science. Data-driven means you will be using data available to pull valuable insights out to apply for marketing campaigns. You will use the data to tell a story. A big part of data-driven marketing is creativity.
M.S. Data Marketing Communications Program
West Virginia University, offers a M.S. in Data Marketing Communications that is fundamentally perfect to develop and enhance the skills necessary to become a data-driven marketing expert. But what does the program entail? The program is always evolving course content to meet the needs of the dynamic industry. As a Data Marketing Communications student you can expect to take 10 three-credit courses, totaling the 30 credit hours required for graduation. This program is entirely online and offers both fall and spring start dates. An advisor can also help customize your schedule to ensure that you have a smooth transition into this exciting program at a time that is right for you. The courses will be taken in a sequential order that pairs courses that complement one another. Here are some courses that you can expect to take:
- Introduction to Data Marketing Communications: in this Data Marketing Communications intro course, students explore database marketing, loyalty programs, financial and marketing metrics, audience targeting and segmentation, data for digital marketing, data visualization and marketing automation.
- Audience Segmentation: Explore demographic data and other key indicators that can inform successful campaigns, and which data best serve the development of unique market segments to support specific marketing communication goals.
- Brand Data Collection and Visualization: Examine the benefits of mining your own brand data for insights that could influence marketing communications decisions with an emphasis on how that data can be presented visually to key stakeholders.
- Campaign Metrics and Assessment: Explore how data informs key performance indicators that define a campaign’s success. Students examine how metrics can rely on data for maximum benefit and survey available metrics and assessment platforms.
- Campaign Planning and Programmatic Media Buying: Examine the automated media buying landscape with a focus on the risks, rewards and tools used. Explore software platforms available for automated buying to understand the connection between how data input affects media buying output.
- Data Management Platforms: Explore database platforms and how data can be analyzed to develop specialized and highly targeted marketing communications. Examine the relative merits of various platforms based on their specific needs.
- Message Customization: Examines how data enables marketing communicators to customize messages to target audiences as small as a single consumer. Students will examine how to motivate consumers by provided brand communications that are relevant, timely and personal.
- Messaging For Customer Relationship Management: This Data course examines how data is leveraged for communications intended to retain current customers and acquire new ones.
- Social Media Optimization: Examine how data from social media can be leveraged to ensure marketing communications messages reach intended target audiences. Students explore gathering data from social media and customizing messages for maximum impact.
- Data Marketing Communications Campaigns: In this Data capstone course, students develop a cohesive marketing communications campaign that demonstrates both a conceptual and practical mastery of data driven marketing communications. (Must be completed in a student's final academic term)
Careers in Data Marketing Communications
In data marketing communications you can expect to find a number of different career opportunities within the field This is because the industry recognizes the need for professional communicators who can apply data, analysis and creative thinking to marketing professionals who understand the importance of data driven marketing. Here are a list of career opportunities you can expect to find in the industry:
- Innovation Manager
- Director of Marketing and Digital Services
- Experiential Account Manager
- Chief Experience Manager
- Data Analytics Manager
- Emerging Technology Specialist
- Acquisition Marketing Manager
- Marketing Analyst
- Chief Strategy Officer
- Market Research Analyst
- Growth Marketing Manager
Additionally, 98% of alumni said they felt more competitive and/or received a promotion upon completing their master’s degree while a recent survey of alumni, more than half stated they received 25%+ raises after earning their degrees. For more information on this program you can request more information here.
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Meet the Author
Erik Rudolph
Marketing Assistant Student Worker
Erik is a senior advertising student with a minor in communications, he also is a part of the MSJ 4+1 program at WVU. He is currently the marketing assistant student worker for the WVU Marketing Communications Graduate Programs. Erik loves the sport of boxing and works closely with a local boxing promotion in Morgantown, Real Fight Promotions, as a color commentator and a social media manager.
Marcom Today
Marketing Communications Today is a collection of resources for marketing communications professionals filled with industry research, marketing trends, and career information about integrated marketing and data-driven communications. Learn industry insights through the Marketing Communications Today blog, podcast, as well as Integrate Online.
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