Last Updated on: 22nd November 2023, 04:13 pm
When faced with tough decisions, conventional wisdom tells people to go with their gut instinct. That might work in relationships or other personal areas of life, but using this strategy is rarely a good idea in business.
In the modern world, remaining profitable and staying ahead of the competition requires using analytics to understand customer intent and behavior. This can help with everything from purchasing inventory to hiring new employees. Companies typically reap many benefits from doing so, including greater profitability and efficiency and a better system for risk management.
Specific Ways Using Analytics Can Increase the Bottom Line
Today’s consumer has advantages that people didn’t have less than one generation ago. Thanks to the Internet and other technological advances, they have often researched products and companies before ever visiting their website or physical location.
Because of this, customers often expect businesses to know what they need from the moment they walk in the door or initiate an online shopping session. Businesses must understand where customers are at in the buyer journey to be able to meet this demand.
Here are some real ways that analytics can help them to do just that:
- Determine how customers found the business: Knowing the marketing channels a customer came through to discover a company’s products and services is important. It tells businesses which marketing strategies work well and which they could refine or eliminate. This allows companies to focus most of their marketing efforts on campaigns with proven results.
- Predicting future customer behavior: It’s impossible for businesses to meet customer needs when they don’t understand their motivation and buying behavior. Analytics provides the data to evaluate new technologies and predict how consumers will respond to them. This gives businesses a heads-up to address these changes. It also enables businesses to gain a better understanding of how customers interact with their brand to create an even better customers experience going forward.
- Retaining existing customers: It doesn’t take long for business owners to realize that it costs far less money and effort to make an existing customer happy than it does to find a new customer. Not only that, but happy customers tell their friends and family about a brand or business and provide it with free advertising. In a recent study conducted by Google and two marketing companies, nearly three-quarters of respondents stated that they checked out what a company had to offer based solely on word of mouth.
These are just three of the multiple ways that businesses of any size can use analytics tools to their advantage.
Integrate Customer Data with Existing Online Data Analytics Programs
Web analytics programs such as Google Analytics 360 give businesses detailed insights into consumer behavior on their web platforms at scale. By integrating such programs with marketing automation solutions such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, companies can gain a better understanding of who makes up their customer base, what drives their online behavior, and their overall customer journey.
In 2020, it’s all about understanding how to know your customer. The result is better targeted marketing, happier customers, and a healthier profit for the business.
