Companies that want to work in a more data-driven way should consider these five things before embarking on their journey. Whether it’d be marketing, hr, finance, or sales… The foundation has to be solid. To measure is to know; hence not knowing exactly what you are measuring doesn’t propel a company forward on its journey, au contraire.

Imagine a company that wants to identify so-called high potentials. What it means to be a high-potential could be drastically different in Europe as opposed to Asia or America. That’s why an unambiguous, shared language is required, so definitions are clear.

Ideally, a baseline is established. Without one deciding if trends are positive or negative becomes more of a guessing game. Also, data should be measured continuously. A one-off measurement can never represent the context and nuance that it needs.

If a company can only rely on analysts to reveal insights, there is a chance a lot of other valuable insights remain uncovered. The data should be accessible to the right people and presented in a comprehensible format.

Apples and apples or apples and oranges? Without the ability to compare, the data remains isolated. Comparisons in time or benchmarking with industry standards help with orienting where the company is.

Garbage in, garbage out. The adage doesn’t surprise anyone. Yet, dubious data input happens relatively often in analytics journies. These five pillars revolve around laying the right foundations, and quality is an absolute must.

Those five pillars once again; shared language, baseline & continuous measurement, comparing, and quality.

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In marketing, anticipating your (potential) customers†needs and desires is considered standard practice.

In HR, anticipating your customers†— the people who work with you — needs and desires, is a rather novel idea.

Anticipate your customers†expectations as well as you can, and cater to them, preferably before they manifest themselves.

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When products and services are offered for sale, there has to be a customer on the receiving end. How many times is there a customer in the meeting room, though? If it isn’t a focus group, but a good old regular meeting, there is almost never a customer among the attendees.

Obviously, having a firm empathic understanding of the customer is the job of some of the people within the company, especially the people in marketing and sales. However, without the voice of the customer in the room, the risk of concluding with critical assumptions is substantial.

Keep your customers close.

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One is distributed by a premium brand in equally premium shops, the other one is distributed in discount supermarkets.

If your brain can trick you into thinking one tastes better than the other, think of all the other effects perceived brand value has.

Your brand is an asset and needs constant nurturing.

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Suppose somebody is fortunate enough to grow up wealthy and healthy. In that case, they might perhaps struggle meeting – and subsequently connecting with less fortunate people, and vice versa.

The ability to blend in, to connect with people in all layers of society is a potent asset.

What’s true of individuals is also true of businesses. Depending on the (variety of) products and services sold, the ability to level with your audience is crucial.

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The person you target with marketing initiatives might not be the person who decides whether to buy your product or not.

That means you have to help your end customer to convince their buying manager.

The customer who ends up using and the buying manager will likely have different pains. Consequently, your marketing should highlight different gains for each of these personae individually.

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Below are four reasons why diversity within a target audience makes things complicated.

Sample size too small

Perhaps finding similarities within your audience is just around the corner. When you’re just starting out with a handful of customers, finding similarities between your customers could be complicated. If a pattern doesn’t reveal itself straight away, wait until your sample size increases.

You haven’t found them yet

Maybe the similarities are there, but you’re not seeing them. If what you’re looking for is obscure at first, it’s tough to spot. You won’t know what to look for precisely, which isn’t exactly helping in the process. The upside is that you’ll have clear targeting criteria once you do find it.

Their similarity is their diversity

Maybe diversity is the defining factor. The fact that a limited amount of parameters can’t define your audience, that is precisely what defines them. The way forward, in this case, is to look for like-minded people. People that don’t seem to fit a particular profile. That’s your profile.

Can’t be probed

Your audience’s characteristics are tough to define from a behavioral and analytical point of view. In that case, defer to those parameters that are easy to define. Criteria such as geography and age.

It’s like Aaliyah said: if at first, you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again.

Building your ideal customer profile doesn’t happen overnight.

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As unlikely as some of these activities may seem to the rest of us, there is a crowd willing to go out of their way to achieve these very specific goals.

If you can create value, even though it’s a very peculiar value, subsequently profit from it, you (might) have a business (to consumer) model.

Cater that particular value to people who get out of bed early on a free day.

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One individual. That’s all it takes. Get them to go to a certain place, perform a specific action, or establish that you were genuinely able to inspire someone (to change their behavior).

How hard can it be? For you to find out. Without strong foundations, a tall building is never really an option. If a (proverbial) skyscraper is what you’re after, build one relationship at a time. Only then to double down on what works consistently.

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Why pursue an extensive reach? So that, when you talk to people, preferably as many as possible, they listen.

Being able to reach ten million people is potentially valuable. Still, without your crowd engaging with your message, the value of that particular audience rapidly declines.

How to build an audience for your business? Optimize (individual) relationships and scale them up, one by one. The other way around, chasing big numbers first might look nice on paper, however, a large crowd refusing to take a desired action, isn’t worth all that much.

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