How to collect data you can use | Your practical guide to data collection methods

Are you looking for cold hard numbers to start guiding the direction of your business but not sure where to start? We’ve got actionable strategies you can use to start efficiently collecting useful data today.

We’re living in the information age, and if you’re not collecting customer data and leveraging it to inform decision making, you’re going to get left behind.

Even the smallest start-ups are hitting the ground running with highly functional point of sale (POS) systems and customer relationship management (CRM) software that supports and is improved by data collection and data enrichment, but the arms race that is data collection doesn’t stop there.

Here’s a short and practical guide on how to ramp up your data collection game.

1. Record the data from your contact form, register form, and order forms on your website or ecommerce site

Make sure to capture valuable information from your website visitors by integrating data collection fields into your contact forms, registration forms, and order forms. Ask for essential details such as name, email address, and other relevant information, such as how they heard about your business, what their habits pertaining to your industry are, and the categories of products you sell that they are interested in. The more information you have, the better you’ll understand your customers and be able to cater to their needs.

2. Let people subscribe to a newsletter and send them quality content

Encourage visitors to subscribe to your newsletter by offering valuable content and industry insights. By obtaining their email addresses, and encouraging them to hit the “opt-in” button on your contact forms, you can establish a direct line of communication, nurture a long-term relationship, and cultivate a loyal audience.

Consistently providing your customers with high-quality content that adds value to their experience with your products, or addresses their pain points, cements your position as an industry leader, and, very importantly, keeps them from opting out, or from your newsletter being a victim of an inbox purge.

3. Use gated content such as white papers or exclusive videos

Offering gated content, such as exclusive white papers or informative videos, that users can only access in exchange for submitting their personal data and being a subscriber, or a member, incentivizes visitors to provide their contact information.

It’s good practice to offer X amount of content for free, to get the word out in your industry that you are a resource, and you are the masters of your domain, but having premium content for subscribers only, such as short films, white papers, or possibly even live streamed Q & As with special guests, and teasing that gated content within your free content can be highly effective at getting people to opt-in or submit.

Odds are if they’re making it to the end of any free video or articles you’ve produced, they’re a fan, and for the price of giving away their email address and name to get the top shelf goods, signing up looks like a steal.

Pro tip: Going the extra mile on your gated content, and adding value to that proposition, when done well, can be considered community building. Users with access to that content are inside “the gate,” so to speak, and if they enjoy that experience, and you really make it feel like an exclusive and exciting place to be, you’re creating highly vocal ambassadors who’ll encourage more people to get involved.

4. Create online contests and marketing games

Online contests and marketing games, such as the ones you can easily and quickly customise on Drimify, are a great way to take users out of their heads and deliver an exciting experience. Whether you’re giving them a chance to win a prize, or just engaging them in a challenging puzzle or classic game, you’re getting their full attention.

Incorporating data collection screens with opt-in buttons within these experiences becomes far more effective than just leaving a contact form on a landing page, or giving them the option next to the “checkout as a guest” option. There’s a quid pro quo to proceedings – you’re not just asking for details, you’re providing them with diversion, or a chance to win, so you’re far more likely to get them to fill in your contact form, and far more likely to get an opt-in to your marketing newsletter.

5. Unify the collected data in a CRM or a marketing automation tool

Data is just a headache and a liability if it’s not organised, and it’s a waste of time collecting it if it’s not then used to support decision making and marketing functions. This is where CRM systems and marketing automation tools come into play.

Unifying your data in a system that’s modern and functional makes it easy to access and analyse it to identify patterns, and make informed business decisions based on accurate customer insights. Integrating your CRM with a marketing automation tool makes it easy to segment and distribute personalised marketing newsletters at scale.

When you get a marketing newsletter from a big corporation, and they’ve hit more than they’ve missed in terms of products and content that you find interesting, you know this wasn’t put together by a person analysing all your interactions and orders with the company. You know it’s achieved by unified data, and it’s segmented at scale, but whether you’re a small to medium sized enterprise or even a start-up, there are now tools and solutions out there that will allow you achieve a similar effect with your own data.

Pro tip: Segment your audience further by easily creating and distributing Personality Tests or Product Recommendation Quizzes on Drimify. Get to know their traits, their behaviours, their preferences and their interests pertaining to your industry, and leverage that information to make even more personalised communications to achieve higher conversion rates and greater levels of customer satisfaction.

Key takeaway

Modern business runs on well organised and effectively utilised customer data. The more of it you have, and the better you use it, the far greater your chances of success.

Ultimately, understanding your customer: what they want, what they need, what they like, and what they don’t like, is the key to making them happy, and happy customers are returning customers.

Take this practical guide to collecting data, assess your current data situation, and see how you can improve your approach today.