Unlock Marketing Success by Boosting Data Literacy in Your Company
Blog
Oct 15
Data literacy, the capacity to understand and communicate data to leverage it meaningfully, is an essential skill when working with your company’s data. Without good data literacy skills, it is difficult to efficiently analyze and use your data to improve your business and its marketing processes.
Because data literacy is vital for your company’s success, it’s necessary to take steps to train employees and build their data literacy skills. Doing so creates a data-driven environment and one where employees can actively participate in data-driven decision-making.
What Makes Data Literacy Important for Brands?
A minimum of $1 out of every $5 in a business’s earnings is a direct result of the value derived from data assets. For that reason, it makes financial sense to invest in data literacy. With employees who understand data better and can use it to boost their processes and make better marketing decisions, the outcome is excellent. Businesses that have the highest level of data mastery see real results — to the tune of around 70% higher revenue per person.
Common Barriers to Data Literacy
Data literacy is a skill that you have to refresh and build on constantly. However, with the basics in place, many people can be prepared to work with data and learn new skills as they go.
The trouble with the initial training is that there has to be an organization-wide buy-in. Leaders must agree that data literacy is an important part of their business, and they also have to agree on the level of data literacy needed across the board. In some departments, for example, data literacy may not be as important as in others, and that creates a question of where to invest in additional training and when to involve some (or all) of the employees at the company.
The second major issue is the need for measuring data literacy. Measuring data literacy isn’t easy. The company needs to be data literate enough to have the answers they need but they also don’t necessarily need to have every employee become an expert. Raising all employees to an expert level of data literacy would be cost-intensive, too, which is another barrier to improving data literacy.
Steps To Establish a Data Literacy Framework
To establish a data literacy framework within your organization, it’s important to start from the top down. The priority is to get leadership to agree that data literacy is important and worth the investment.
Then, the next step is to assess your organization’s current level of data literacy. Identifying who has the most data literacy, whether it’s a C-level executive or someone in your IT department, will help you gauge how much additional training and support is needed.
Once you know where your business stands, it’s time to set up measurable goals to fill data literacy gaps. For example, if your marketing department needs additional training in analyzing data, where it comes from, and how it can be used, you have to decide how you’re going to measure success. Is success going through training? Is there a noticeable uptick in leads and conversions after training? Be clear about your goals.
Finally, choose your training method and a way to regularly review who needs more targeted training to support your business. If you have limited financial resources or a strict timeline, choosing targeted training for specific individuals could be the key to staying within your budget and improving data literacy without too much of a delay.
Overcoming Data Literacy Barriers
Now that you know the barriers that may hold you back from building a data literacy program or investing in data literacy, how can you overcome those challenges?
1. Invest in training. Start with the people who need training and who will have an immediate impact on your business, such as your marketing department or IT team. Send one or two representatives to courses or workshops, or bring in a data literacy trainer.
2. Create a culture that trusts the data. Your company’s culture has to be one that pushes employees to learn more about the data they have at their disposal. Changing your company’s culture and mindset can take time, but promoting data-driven decision-making skills will help make using data second nature.
3. Push back against resistance. Why are employees or executives unwilling to welcome technology and data literacy into their workflows? Hesitancy to adapt to new tools is common, but appropriate training and a good data literacy plan can help.
Understanding and using data to improve your business and marketing efforts is tough without good data literacy skills. Since data literacy is crucial for your company’s success, it’s important to train employees and help them develop these skills. Data literacy has barriers, but by overcoming them, your organization can see real benefits from using data to improve your workflows. Investing in data literacy gives you a more skilled team and one that can truly leverage the data you collect to power your business.
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