Data flow marketing: test an idea before you spend on it
Play an idea out for your business week by week and see where the information you would need is missing.
We call this data flow marketing. It is how big businesses plan their marketing. The difference is that it is built for a small business: systems you can keep running yourself, different for every business.
You take an idea (an offer, an app or an email) and play it out for the business week by week.
How it works
- 1The business as it really isOnly what it can actually see: the till's counts, its analytics, the people it knows by name.
- 2Everyone is an actorThe customers, the staff, the people who have never been in. The manager is perhaps the main actor.
- 3Events drive what people doSomeone joins, comes back or has not been in for a while. The day of the week. The weather.
- 4Play it out with what if questionsWeek by week, no guessed numbers. What if we made an offer? What if the manager knew the regulars? The gap is where the information you would need is missing.
- 5Find the bridge that makes it workThe what ifs point to it: a way for someone to come forward that triggers the next step. Someone joins, comes back or has not been in for a while and the right message follows. It does not need to be high tech.
Ways of working
People doing it as part of the day: you, the manager, the staff. The cheapest to start and the easiest to test by hand. Often it is all a small business needs to get going.
- Manager's note → greeted by name
- Asking a name → personal welcome
- Loyalty card → reason to return
- Sign up sheet → newsletter list
- Phone call → follow up email
- Referral → thank the friend
- Feedback form → reply and fix
- Competition entry → joins the list
- Reply → conversation
- Comment → public reply
- Direct message → personal answer
- Review → thank you
- Video → website post
- QR code → instant sign up
Machine to machine
Systems you already have pass what they know to each other. The right message goes out without anyone having to remember.
- Enquiry form → instant reply
- Booking → day before reminder
- Email receipt → thanks and a tip
- Newsletter sign up → welcome series
- Online order → thank you email
- Existing system → message on time
- Integration → one customer record
- Membership → member tips
- App → quiet time nudge
Agentic, with a little AI, checked by you
A small helper with a little AI reads what comes in and gets the next step ready. You check it before anything goes out.
- Email → personal reply
- Enquiry → right information
- Date mentioned → message on the day
- Returning customer → welcome back
- Recording → post in their words
- Gone quiet → check in
- Not been in → invitation back
- Week of comments → next post idea
- Question → answer on your site
- Conversation → next step
- Missed call → text back
- Form → welcome email
- Interest → tips on it
- Good review → thank and share
- Monday → week's follow ups
- Common question → answer in your words
- 6Test the ideaEven if the test is done by hand.
- 7Do it and make it the new baseWhat you learnt is where the next idea starts.
Back to step 4 for the next idea
Once the gap is clear the strategy becomes clear. If there is no bridge then we can only work with what we have.
Examples
A café wondered whether an offer or an app would bring people back. Played out over a month, the café turned away more people than it served. An offer could only reach people the café knew. It knew almost nobody by name. The gap was not the offer. It was knowing who its customers are.
A specialist workshop wanted more Google reviews and more customers coming back. Played out, three emails would do it: a welcome, a thank you a few days after each job with a review link, a reminder when the next service is due. The gap was not the emails. It was knowing whose job was done and when. The bridge was a way of working: a short note of each job, kept the same way every time.
A community website wanted more people to share a video. The idea was a post each week in its LinkedIn group. Rather than guess what that would bring, each week we capture the posts, the views, the replies, visits to the site, new members, offers to share and the videos that go up. After a few weeks the real numbers replace the guesses and the next what if is played again.
Try it
Tell me a campaign you are thinking about. I play it out for your business week by week and show you what might happen. Then what you would need to know first. There is no cost to get started. I run the first test for free. On a plan it is what we use for your personalised planning.