Crafting a Marketing Data Story: 2 Influential Methods

June 28, 2023 Stan

Modern marketers live and breathe performance data all day long. There is tons of it – from display ads, to email campaigns, to website analytics, to lead conversion data. Marketers are used to finding insights in all of this, but creating an effective data story to convey its importance is key. When it comes to sharing performance data with business stakeholders additional strategies and tools are required to effectively communicate insights, trends, and even ROI. As companies collect data from engagement channels and platforms, the need to bring this data together in an easily digestible format becomes greater. This is where data visualization and data storytelling helps. Visual-based content can be easier to understand while providing a narrative helps people retain important information more easily.

Data Visualization

At its core, data visualization helps people communicate more effectively by using visual elements to highlight key data while making it more engaging and accessible. The primary benefits of data visualization are:

Showcasing trends and patterns
Simplifying complex data into digestible information
Portraying data in a purposeful manner

Data visualization is important for a number of reasons but most of all, it helps ensure marketing dollars are spent effectively. With the proper visualizations, marketers and leadership will have the actionable insights needed to optimize programs, content, and spend. There are many different applications for data visualization in marketing for reviewing funnel stage and conversion metrics, analyzing target audience performance, refining lead nurture flows, and understanding the impact of personalization strategies across tactics. Regardless of the application, to ensure the data is meaningful to stakeholders, it’s important to start by identifying the business questions the data needs to answer. Some common questions are:

What are the overarching business objectives?
What key performance indicators (KPIs) are relevant to the goals?
What metrics will provide the insights needed?

Depending on the answers to these questions, a report with a few diagrams may suffice. On the other hand, you may need more sophisticated interactive dashboards. Before starting down the data visualization path, be sure the goals and objectives are clear. This will help focus on the core metrics necessary to keep the visualizations specific and avoid any overcrowding of data that can be confusing. Keep these three questions in mind:

What do you need to achieve through visualization?
Who is the audience?
Which data points are relevant to the audience?

Data visualization is not as simple as presenting data in a graph or chart. Data can be misrepresented, oversimplified, or misinterpreted when presented without additional context. When developing visualizations there are some best practices to follow.

Avoid clutter – an overflow of data or cluttered visualizations can defeat the purpose. Be sure any charts or graphs don’t have too many categories that prevent users from understanding the information.
Choose the correct visualization methods to ensure the information being shared is usable.
Use different colors to add meaning to the charts as it helps to categorize information in a way that’s easier to interpret.

If you are curious about how to select the right type of visualizations for the information you are sharing, our best practices guide can help.

Data Storytelling

Incorporating a narrative for the data being shared helps to communicate the story behind the numbers and why it’s important for the audience. Facts alone can be forgettable or uninspiring which is why having a more effective way to communicate is valuable. The human brain reacts differently to stories. Storytelling creates an emotional connection with the audience that makes it easier to process information by simplifying complex information into digestible key points and actionable insights.

A data story doesn’t happen on its own, it needs to be curated and prepared for the audience to maximize the impact of the insights. A good narrative around the data will help explain why the business is performing the way it is, providing valuable insights that support decisions that can lead to improved business outcomes. Data stories can help people understand a problem, risk, or opportunity in a way that compels them to take action. There are three primary advantages of data storytelling over traditional reporting:

The data becomes more memorable because the narrative helps people process and retain new information.
Stories are more engaging. When people listen to stories they tend to be more open-minded and less skeptical which leads to stronger comprehension of the information being shared.
Stories can be more persuasive than statistics alone. Stories help hold people’s attention and make them more empathetic and likely to take action.

Data stories may be compared with data visualizations but they are two different techniques. Data visualizations help communicate points in a narrative but data storytelling also relies on expertise on the subject at hand and communication skills to craft the broader story. Visualizations help make a particular trend more clear but the story provides the context of who, what, why or how.

At the end of the day, turning data into action is the ultimate goal for data visualizations and data storytelling. Combining both ensures valuable insights are not lost in a spreadsheet, but rather are used to make decisions that lead to better business outcomes. If you need guidance as you explore better ways to represent your data, or build your data story, please reach out – we’re always here to help.

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