Marketing analytics: Know your customers

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/marketing-analytics-customers

Introduction

### Course Review: Marketing Analytics: Know Your Customers on Coursera In the evolving landscape of marketing, understanding your customers is more crucial than ever. The course “Marketing Analytics: Know Your Customers” offered on Coursera is designed for individuals and businesses eager to harness the power of data to cultivate customer-centric strategies. This comprehensive course dives deep into the nuances of marketing analytics, turning raw data into actionable insights. #### Overview The course kicks off with a fundamental premise: customer value should be at the heart of any organization’s strategy. Through a structured approach that combines video lectures, quizzes, industry interviews, and practical assessments, this course ensures that participants not only grasp the importance of marketing analytics but also learn how to implement these strategies effectively. #### Syllabus Breakdown 1. **The Primacy of Customer Value**: Understanding how to measure customer value is paramount. This module shifts the focus from a product-centric model to a customer-centric approach, enabling participants to uncover the true worth of their customer relationships. By emphasizing the changing dynamics of consumer power in the marketplace, learners are equipped to prioritize customer satisfaction and loyalty. 2. **Types of Customer Data**: In today’s data-driven world, not all data is created equal. This week’s focus on the different types of customer data—alongside methodologies for gathering meaningful insights—is invaluable. The course teaches how to strike a balance between accessibility and relevance of data, helping students navigate the overwhelming world of information-sourcing. 3. **Tools for Analyzing Customer Data**: Aimed at both small businesses and large firms, this module discusses affordable and effective tools for data analysis. As many smaller enterprises face budget constraints, the exploration of cloud-based and software-as-a-service (SAAS) options democratizes access to valuable marketing analytics, making it possible for all businesses to leverage data in their strategies. 4. **Combining Tools for Meaningful Insight**: Once the relevant data is accumulated, students learn how to synthesize various data forms to create coherent insights. This week emphasizes practical frameworks to better understand customer needs, honing in on actionable strategies that align business offerings with customer expectations. 5. **Using Customer Data to Drive Strategy**: Looking forward rather than backward is crucial in harnessing analytics for strategy. This module cultivates creativity, encouraging learners to use insights gleaned from data to develop innovative solutions that address gaps between current offerings and customer aspirations. This forward-thinking approach is essential for sustained business growth. 6. **Using Digital and Social Marketing to Improve Customer Value**: The transition from traditional media to digital marketing is a pervasive topic in today’s marketing discourse. This module facilitates an understanding of how to optimize customer value through digital engagement rather than relying solely on traditional advertising methods. It examines the nuances of online behavior and the best practices for integrating digital strategies into a broader marketing framework. #### Recommendation “Marketing Analytics: Know Your Customers” stands out as a highly recommended course for anyone interested in elevating their marketing strategy through a customer-centric lens. Whether you are a marketing professional looking to hone your skills or a business owner wanting to deepen your understanding of your customer base, this course provides valuable insights and tools that are easily applicable in real-world scenarios. The blend of theoretical knowledge and practical application ensures that participants leave with a solid grasp of marketing analytics, equipping them to serve their customers better and drive strategic growth. Furthermore, Coursera’s flexible learning format allows you to study at your own pace while still engaging with a community of fellow learners. With rapid advancements in technology and the abundance of data available today, this course is timely and relevant. Your customers deserve a strategy that puts them at the forefront, and by taking this course, you’ll be well on your way to achieving just that.

Syllabus

The primacy of customer value

You know how much of your product/service you’re selling (hopefully), but do you understand how each customer fits into the mix? Businesses need to move from a product-centric model to a customer-centric model as changes in society and technology place more power in the customer’s hands. This week you will learn about the importance of valuing your customers – and how to uncover that value.

Once you understand the importance of customer value, you will want to get your hands on all the data you can about your customers, to help you decide how best to serve them. However, beware: Not all customer data is equal. This week you will learn about the importance of balance. - Balancing how easy it is to gather and analyse against its relevance to your business. +-Balancing the relevance/importance of data you could or should be gathering against the cost of obtaining that data. Finding the balance between relying on the types of data you’ve always used against the promises made about data obtained by digital means. Working out how to weigh up the relative usefulness and importance of disparate types of data.

Unless you’re working for a large multinational firm, it’s highly likely that the cost of gathering and analysing the optimal amount of relevant customer data is more than you can afford. However, there are many cloud-based, software as a service (SAAS) tools available that make robust analysis achievable. This week we will explore the types of tools used by both large and small businesses for customer data and analysis and identify which questions will help you determine which ones are most relevant to you.

Once you have decided which types of customer data are relevant, achievable and affordable, and then gathered all the information on customers that you can, how do you turn it into something useful (for both you and your customer)? This week we explore how to combine different forms of data to create a meaningful picture of your customers. Using the customer-centric frameworks developed earlier in this unit, we consider how to best understand your customers, what they want, and how you can re-tool your business to meet their needs.

The biggest problem with data and analytics is that it’s all backward-looking; you’re reviewing what’s happened in the past. How do you use your deeper understanding of your customers to develop and innovate? Here’s where the creativity comes in. This week we look at how to blend the insights learned about your customers with other information to create solutions that help bridge the gap between your customers’ current and aspired selves and unlock growth in your business.

Some experts have said that customers are now all online, so brands need to move all their promotional effort from traditional media to digital media, particularly social media. Despite the growing numbers of online/social media users and declining audiences for traditional media, it’s not that simple. People go online for different reasons and while consuming tools such as social media, they’re less receptive to brand messaging. Following on from everything we’ve learned in this unit, this week we will focus on how to use digital media to optimise customer value, as opposed to engaging in interruption marketing.