Rebelling

According to Forbes Insights, “85% of companies are succeeding with analytics.” At one point in time, analytics was only used for selected projects by data wizards. However, with online usage and social media marketing on the rise, there has been a subsequent increase in digital marketing data too. This has resulted in analytics becoming an integral part of every business - the reason being the information it provides can actually make or break a business. Analytics is a critical part of your business to gauge the success of a lead generation campaign, website content, marketing strategy etc. It provides your company with real leverage to target the right audience and increase revenue.

Read on to know 5 reasons why analytics is important for business -

1. Puts your brand in a strong competitive position

According to Forbes, “companies who adopt data-driven marketing are more likely to have an advantage over the competition and increase profitability. In fact- they are six times more likely to be profitable year-over-year.” Insights from historical as well as real-time data, when put together can provide your brand an edge over competitors. Merging and analyzing all this information and putting it to use is important because disruption is quite common among most industries. For example, in the telecommunication industry, customers tend to change connections easily for a better deal. So, if such a trend shows up in the analysis, a customized offer can help retain the customers and stay ahead of competition.

2. Helps you find new opportunities in business

Identifying new opportunities in business is an integral part of its growth. Analytics can provide important insights that helps brands understand the best way to engage with their customers across all platforms of communication. Using past information and predictive analysis can help businesses plan a successful future. Moreover, time is a valuable factor and identifying the ‘right spot’ to focus on is important to know that you’re on track. For instance, analytics can find that your website gets a good amount of leads from particular keywords. Hence, you can focus on those keywords while writing content for the website or planning a marketing campaign. [caption id="attachment_10555" align="aligncenter" width="410"] Source: slideshare.com[/caption]

3. Reduce expenses to become more cost-effective

Improper planning or a poor financial strategy often creates complications in business. Data insights can be a great help in this regard to identify areas where cost can be reduced and prevent unnecessary spending. A complete budget analysis can help figure out the areas where cost can be minimized. Apart from that, identifying the best marketing strategies and campaigns increase the chances of higher ROI. [caption id="attachment_10556" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Source: Business Wire[/caption] An example to consider in this regard would be an e-commerce store. “On an average, the cost of product returns is 1.5 times than that of actual shipping.” Now, if companies can analyze the city or customers with the most returns, they can take preventive measures or get feedback from customers to control expenses in logistics and transportation.

4. Deeper & detailed understanding of customers

“49% of marketers use data to enhance customer experience.” With access to more sophisticated analytics like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and third-party data, more information about customers can now be collected apart from gender, age and location. More detailed insight on factors like affluence, price sensitivity, brand loyalties and behavior traits of your potential customers will help in tracing their complete digital footprints. [caption id="attachment_10557" align="aligncenter" width="551"] Source: slideshare[/caption] A McKinsey report states that “companies that use customer analytics comprehensively report outstripping their competition in terms of profit almost twice as often as companies that do not.”  Today’s customers are more connected and empowered than ever before. This is the reason why it is all the more important to predict their behavior when they visit your site to give out a feasible response. The deeper the understanding, the more accurate will be the prediction and the more successful you will be at providing offers to attract and retain your customers.

5. Leaves scope of improvement

The data collected from analytics not only helps to understand customer behavior but also to improve marketing tactics. Data analysis can help identify the strategies that are working well and the ones that are failing. This information can help in both refinement and improvement of strategies in the future. Moreover, other factors like where it should be marketed and how often should it be done can also be predicted. For example, if data says that a particular campaign works better on social media instead of an emailer or newsletter, you would know where to run it in the future. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with customer information. You don’t need hours to analyze every data, but using the right metrics can help you track where your business is heading and help you plan the next course of action. To know more how to use analytics for your business growth, leave us a message and we’ll get back to you.