Frequently Asked Questions

In its most simplist form, a data strategy is a long term plan for how your business will collect, manage and use data.

It tends to cover the following areas:

Vision and Purpose: How you want data to be used throughout your business.

People: Who is responsible for data in the business, from strategic decision making using data through to the data collection. This may include understanding the levels of data literacy in your business, training needs and hiring needs for specific skills that are required to support the vision and purpose.

Process: How data will be captured and processed to meet the needs of the business. This may include contact details, transactions, survey responses etc and could include any data enhancements, analytics or modelling that may be required.

Technology: What technologies you need to use to store, process, manage and access your data and how they will be both used and maintained in the business. This may be looking at your marketing technology used, through to your call centre applications.

Data Governance: How you are processing, managing and governing your data to ensure compliance with GDPR and any prevailing legislation, keeping your data safe, secure, consistent, and accurate.

Roadmap: What needs to happen and how long new developments will take to be implemented. This is critical as if a data strategy is a new initiative in a business, or a new tech development is instrumental to success, the implementation roadmap may take time so detailing this up front is critical.

If these components of the data strategy are in place, you will have a solid basis for consistent reporting and measurement, using the data for improved customer experience and communications, and access to actionable analytics which will all deliver a positive impact on your business both in terms of efficiencies and also uplift in effectiveness.

Whilst we are outlining a broad framework for a data strategy, we do not believe that there is a “one size fits all” approach to designing a business's data strategy. All businesses are unique and the data strategy needs to be designed for the business to enable it to thrive. When we work with businesses on writing their data strategies, we always spend time upfront understanding the business’s ambitions, data and tech landscape and people skills / resources. This has so much impact on the vision, the components of the data strategy and also the speed of implementation and change that will be required.

A data strategy shouldn't be purely the responsibility of IT or the data team, instead it needs to start with the business ambition to ensure what is being addressed in the data strategy is actually going to be used to deliver impact and support the business ambitions.

In enterprise organisations, the data strategy is often the responsibility of the Chief Data Officer who will lead the organisations data strategy design and implementation across these key pillars. In SME and large organisations, there tends not to be a single owner, but rather a syndicate working together in it.

MoJo works with SME and large organisations to design data strategies that will meet the business goals and deliver a positive impact

We have written lots of blogs about different components of a data strategy. Here are some of the most popular:

Please get in touch if we can help your business design and implement an impactful data strategy.

When looking at the cost of a segmentation there are a number of things to consider:

• The business problem you are looking to solve with a segmentation

• What type/s of segmentation is needed (often is it more than one)

• The factors that can influence the cost

• How the segmentation will be maintained and applied

Let’s tackle each of these in turn.

Please do keep in mind that the pricing structure we outline below may vary by supplier, but this is our approach to segmentation pricing and will give you a reliable benchmark for comparison.

1. What business problem are you looking to solve with a segmentation?

The reason we start with this is that different segmentation methodologies and outputs support different objectives. Defining the business problem won’t impact the cost but is just a critical factor in any analytical project.

2. What type/s of segmentation is needed?

There are many different types of segmentation, and we are of the belief that one uber-segmentation model does not exist that will answer everything. As a business, you may just need one tightly defined segmentation model or you may need a suite that can work independently and in conjunction with each other. Only by defining the business problem can you best identify what the right solution for you is.

For instance, if you are looking to identify and grow the value of your customers you may want to start with an RFV segmentation (a customers recency, frequency and value of purchasing) using transactional and customer data points.

If you want to develop personas to inform advertising, you may need to enhance your own data first to build the personas. This may include adding data to your own first party data with things like demographics (age, gender), lifestyle information (number of children, marital status), financial information (household income, home ownership) etc.

If you want to be relevant to customers' attitudes, you may need to commission research to explore these attitudes and capture new, bespoke data points that enable the attitudinal statements to be modelled across your database.

We have a great article on segmentation that explains in more detail different methodologies https://www.wearemojo.co.uk/post/segmentation

For MoJo, most segmentations we deliver cost from £20K.

3. The factors that can influence the cost of a segmentation

The methodology used has the most direct impact on the cost for a segmentation project.

If there is little existing knowledge about the customers or datasets being analysed we recommend starting with an Exploratory Data Analysis. This provides a fantastic base to defining the segmentation variables - what is interesting, well populated, what impacts behaviours and value.

Any external data collection, whether that is through data appends or via research, would increase the cost and would need to be scoped and priced based on the volumes and number of questions being appended or asked of the respondents.

Another factor that influences the cost is the volume and cleanliness of the inputs into the segmentation process. If the data inputs are unclean, then time needs to be spent cleaning and standardising the data for effective and accurate analysis.

The visualisation of the output is also a factor - we once worked with a client who wanted lego figures representing their segments on everyone's desk. That is obviously going to incur a higher visualisation cost than a written pen portrait.

4. How the segmentation will be maintained and applied

This is often missed in the excitement of defining a segmentation, but it is a critical part of a segmentation's successful impact on your business. You need it to be operational against your database and into any platforms used to reach customers and prospects e.g. marketing platform, customer service platforms.

Any segmentation algorithm can be applied within the database, or run externally and segmentation scores updated on a periodic basis. The best route will really depend on your data landscape but make sure you cover this when scoping requirements with a supplier.

Also bear in mind that segmentation parameters may change, so a segmentation model is not fixed for the next 5-10 years, it will need monitoring and maintenance to ensure its application continues to be accurate and impactful.

Get expert advise in scoping your segmentation project

If you choose to work with MoJo on your segmentation needs we will go through requirements with you in a lot of detail to ensure the solution we recommend is right for your business, and will be actionable in marketing, sales, customer service etc - however you want to use it! Hopefully this FAQ has given you a good steer as to what may be involved in the pricing of a segmentation project and what to consider when initiating such a project. Do get in touch with us if we can help you develop your segmentation needs.

The key for businesses of all sizes in our digital age is to use data effectively to leverage marketing performance. Here are our top reasons WHY businesses should utilise data to support their marketing and business growth:

1. Understand your ideal customer – data can help you to understand who your best customer is, as well as gain a detailed understanding of their purchase behaviours. This helps you understand opportunities and risks with your customer base - what makes your customer high value to you, what do you need to do to protect that value.

2. Utilise the most effective channels for promotion – understand where you can reach your target audience, when to target them, and with what message and at what cost enables you to maximise the impact of your marketing budget, using cost-effective channels that deliver a positive response.

3. Personalise the experience to existing customers - once you have acquired a new customer, utilise data and insight about the customer so you can deliver a personalised, relevant customer experience to them, building stronger relationships that will then deliver more future purchases from that customer.

4. Build loyal customers – utilise your data to develop loyalty programmes and customer rewards, to increase customer lifetime value, improve retention and increase their likelihood to recommend you to their friends.

5. Increase customer engagement and gather feedback – data-driven marketing enables greater personalised content and an ability to get a quick view of product and brand trust, loyalty, and engagement.

6. Real-time metrics and decisions – rather than having to wait weeks to see if a marketing campaign is driving performance, digital data enables immediate results tracking, quick decisions and the ability to change campaigns to optimise performance. You will be able to see which elements of your marketing are working and what areas need improvement.

7. Quick test and learn and optimisation – With digital and data-based marketing you can utilise an element of risk-taking on perhaps new channels, prices, content, and offers, and be able to see quickly if things are working. You will also be able to see what channels work together to optimise conversion rates.

8. Monitor and continually improve your marketing ROI – using your data effectively leads to continuous improvement and learning to deliver a significant increase in your marketing return on investment.

If you need a data strategy to support your marketing activities and improve your marketing ROI but aren’t sure where to start, please book a Discovery Call with us, and we can talk you through the options available to you.