14 Places To Look For Insights In Marketing Strategy

To help you gain an edge in your marketing efforts, we asked marketing experts and entrepreneurs this question for their best insights. From studying the audience data from your Facebook page to selecting a company to benchmark, there are several tips that may help you obtain an advantage in your marketing plans.

Here are 14 places to look for insights in marketing strategy:

• Study the Audience Data From Your Facebook Page
• Follow Jay Abraham 
• Consider Outsourcing Help for Data Analytics
• Learn From MarketingSherpa
• Use Databox’s Data-Driven Posts
• Look at Competitor’s Negative Customer Reviews
• Follow Adweek On LinkedIn
• Research Marketing Subreddits
• Subscribe to Marketing Newsletters
• Study the Comment Sections of Your Social Media
• Optimize With Crowdsourced Keyword Data Tools
• Learn From Neil Patel
• Use Buzz Analytics for In-Depth Customer Research
• Select a Company to Benchmark

Study the Audience Data From Your Facebook Page

If you want to gain an edge on your social media marketing efforts, especially on Facebook, look at the audience data for your brand’s Facebook page. This will help you get a better understanding of who your audience is and what they are interested in. You can see things like age ranges, affinity groups, and pages people are also interested in, income level, geographic location, etc. Based on this information, you can begin to formulate what kinds of content and ads you should be focusing on to nurture your audience and try to boost your conversions.

Rachel Roff, Urban Skin Rx

Follow Jay Abraham

I have learned so much from Jay Abraham, the world's best marketing consultant in my opinion. He is the master of learning from different sectors and markets to your own and then applying those learnings to your own business. He also teaches everything you need to know about joint ventures and partnerships. Best of all, he gives so much away for free, so even if you are starting out or don't have the budget for consulting, you can still gain so much from Jay Abraham.

Dale Reardon, All Accessibility Matters

Consider Outsourcing Help for Data Analytics

Being able to leverage your data to help grow your business is one of the most important benefits to be aware of when considering outsourcing analytical services. Without the proper staff to perform this kind of analysis, your business could be missing out on opportunities to optimize your offerings, operations, and more. Gaining keener insights using data sources you likely already have opens up possibilities for growth and having a dedicated, experienced analytical service provider can make all the difference. You can utilize data sources like Google Analytics, CRMs, advertising platforms like Google AdWords and/or social media, your own proprietary software(s), etc. The information derived from analyzing these sets of data can help you serve your customers better, understand how/why they interact with your business's website, and so much more.

Maegan Griffin, Skin Pharm

Learn From MarketingSherpa

MarketingSherpa is a research institute that provides good articles about marketing consistently. They always provide fresh insights about what works and give specific examples. It is helpful to study marketing articles like this because you can discover new strategies and discern if they can work for your business. Because this site gives fresh articles, you never run out of ideas to keep your business on a fast track for improvement.

Alex Buchnev, Paddling Space

Utilize Databox’s Data-Driven Posts

I am a very data-driven individual and tend to follow numbers over anecdotal evidence any chance I get. As such, when I’m seeking out tips for new sales and marketing techniques to implement, I like to find approaches that are backed by data. And of all the places I’ve looked for this type of info, Databox’s marketing blog tends to be the best. They’re constantly updating their blog with new posts (typically 2-3 per week), and most of them are data-driven. They survey customers and email list respondents to gauge ideas and put their findings on display in their posts. I’m on their newsletter list and every time a new blog post drops, I always give it a quick read to see whether there are any juicy morsels I can take away and use in my own business. Databox’s blog is a trove of useful data.

John Ross, Test Prep Insight

Look at Competitor’s Negative Customer Reviews

We look at customer review sites to gather insights that will inform our marketing strategy. One approach is to look at negative customer reviews of our competitors to gather ideas as to how we can differentiate ourselves from the competition. For example, say we discover there are many reviews complaining that a close competitor does not offer free shipping. We can respond by offering free shipping to our customers and having this information prominently displayed in all our marketing materials.

Leanna Serras, FragranceX

Follow Adweek On LinkedIn

AdWeek is a great page to use when looking for insights into marketing and new tools/tips. It continuously has speakers, blogs, newsletters, webinars, etc on its LinkedIn page and it is all there for free. Finding social blogs and influencers can be a game-changer in your marketing efforts.

Daniel Tejada, Straight Up Growth

Research Marketing Subreddits

I really like to know what professional marketers are thinking and what technologies or ideas they're leveraging in their work. /r/marketing, /r/askmarketing, and /r/webmarketing are all great sources. If you're into PPC and SEO, the subreddits for those are fantastic as well, albeit a bit technical. Ask questions and answer them when you can. They appreciate good contributions and will react in kind.

David Patterson-Cole, Moonchaser

Subscribe to Marketing Newsletters 

#SEOFOMO and tl;dr marketing are my two favorite newsletters, but I regularly peruse Substack's top business newsletters for more insights. Try out a few different newsletters, see whose style and content fit with your tastes, and reap the benefits. The paid newsletters are really worth their small subscription fee when the content improves your business' bottom line.

Shawn Plummer, The Annuity Expert

Study the Comment Sections of Your Social Media

When making decisions regarding your marketing efforts, always look for insight in the places where consumers engage the most: the comment section. Looking through your replies and comments on Twitter and Instagram is a great way to gauge how your audience is feeling about your brand, products, and social media content. Achieving consumer engagement on social media is one thing, but taking it a step further and using that engagement as data and inspiration for future marketing efforts is what you really need to do to set yourself apart from your competitors.

Brett Larkin, Uplifted Yoga

Optimize With Crowdsourced Keyword Data Tools

We optimize our content creation with the help of crowdsourced keyword data sites such as AnswerThePublic and QuestionDB. These are excellent tools that collate popular search queries on any topic we want to create content on, giving us valuable keywords to target that improve quality and searchability. The best thing about these tools is that they’re incredibly user-friendly. Our content creators really appreciate how the data is represented in visual form, which makes the work they do much more efficient and impactful. The fact that these sites are based on crowdsourced data also gives us an edge when it comes to understanding what the market actually wants.

Jon Kelly, 1st on the List

Learn From Neil Patel

Online marketing guru Neil Patel is a great resource for anyone who wants to expand their marketing knowledge. As an OB/GYN for a women's telehealth platform, visibility is everything. Ever since I signed up for Neil Patel's email newsletter and began listening to his podcast, I have learned several useful hacks that have helped boost our search engine ranking. He also offers a free SEO tool suite on his website, which exposed me to many innovative marketing tools that I wouldn't know about otherwise.

Michael Green, Winona

Use Buzz Analytics for In-Depth Customer Research

Buzz Analytics is a software suite that delivers insights about online conversations and trends. These platforms track trends in keyword mentions and conversations across the Internet, so you can monitor what people are saying about your business online. The software can help you determine the attitude towards your brand, get real-time feedback about your ad campaigns, or understand what your competitors are doing through robust dashboards and comprehensive analytics tools. This tool will also help you understand how customers use social media so that you can better market to them. With these insights, you can identify which content is resonating with which audiences, allowing you to execute a targeted content marketing strategy that delivers the right results.

Jylian Russell, Botpress

Select a Company to Benchmark

Select a company to benchmark. It could be one that exists in your sector, or it could be a company that does something completely different. Acquire as much information as you can about that company – including before-and-after data related to the big marketing plan is implemented. Analyze the data and see for yourself what worked, what didn’t, and why it did or didn’t work. Base your business plan on what that other company tried. If possible, identify a cluster of companies that used the same or similar strategies and analyze how it boosted their businesses. You can gain an edge by revising and updating other people’s ideas.

Trevor Ford, Yotta

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.