The amount of data, especially social data, continues to explode. The volume and variety of data can be overwhelming and daunting, leading marketers to a place where they don’t know what questions to ask or which metrics to use. There’s little sense in the urge to make sense of a mountain of data if there is no methodology involved to know which metrics really matter.
That’s where the common marketing buzzword “actionable insights” comes into the picture.
In its simplest form, actionable insights are defined as the views of data that cause people to think new questions about how processes work and then take action.
Nearly everything is measurable. But not everything is meaningful. Actionable insights is about gaining access to relevant data in context, taking action, and using it to achieve meaningful results.
The trick is to avoid drowning in big data. The current tidal wave of real-time data holds huge rewards for companies that can separate useful information from what is ultimately just noise.
On Forbes.com, DataSift CEO Rob Bailey offered seven points to help companies get real actionable insights from real-time social data, starting with industry-specific monitoring and building a demographic picture of who you audience really is. It’s important to truly understand what your audience likes, measure the social engagement of your content, and then use sentiment analysis tools to identify trends and create predictive models.
New media marketing and analytics expert Pelin Thorogood suggests a new framework – a different way of looking at the metrics that matter – is needed to differentiate what needs to be measured based on the insights that the metrics offer. To deliver more impact and marketing ROI, the focus should be on diagnostic metrics and predictive metrics. These metrics help marketers better understand the complex relationships between disparate marketing channels and how factors will change those outcomes based on analytics and statistical models.
Understanding actionable insights is to understand that when combined effectively, the right metrics can slice through the mountain of data and empower marketers to take action based on accurate insights to deliver marketing ROI and profitability.