There is no denying that statistics and data plays a critical role for businesses across all industries today. Some of the benefits associated with using statistics are as follows:
- Statistics give us the capacity to understand figures from all around the world
- We can predict future trends
- Statistical concepts are used in quality testing
- Statistics help us to understand where our customers are
- We can use stats to make better decisions
- Statistics enable us to determine what data is relevant
This is merely a snapshot of how statistics can help your business. With that being said, in this blog post, we are going to take a look at some current statistics in further depth. These are all statistics that are relevant to companies today, and can be used to drive your business forward.
Since 2013, there have been 14,717,618,286 records stolen
By the time you have finished reading this article, that figure will have increased. You can use this index for a live record count. This means that there are 75 records stolen every second, 4,504 records stolen every minute, and 270,266 records stolen every hour. This highlights why it is critical to take steps to protect data at your business.
In terms of where data is stolen from and what industries are most at risk, social media takes up a lion share of the percentage, coming in at 56.18 per cent. This is then followed by hospitality, technology, and then retail. This is for 2018 only. If we look at data breaches over the past five years, technology holds the greatest share, but as social media is becoming more and more prevalent, it is starting to take over.
This shows why all businesses, big and small, need to take data security seriously. This involves using all of the basic methods, for example, installing a free Virtual Private Network, using a firewall, implementing two-factor authentication, and ensuring all employees change their passwords every three months. Aside from this, you must keep up to date with the PCI DSS, and you need to ensure you are in compliance with the law, both in general and for your industry.
The average consumer spends $2,827 per annum on entertainment
One of the most important factors you need to consider when setting up a business is how big of a market share there is for the product or service you are selling. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by looking at how people spend their money.
You can use this website for a full breakdown of what the average person spends their money on, from food to transportation. You will see that the typical person spends $2,827 on entertainment each year, representing five per cent of their expenditure.
What this figure displays is that more and more people are spending money on entertainment. In fact, there was a ten per cent increase in terms of money spent on this. This is important because it shows that individuals are starting to spend their hard earned cash on luxury items again. This means that new opportunities are opening for those who are creating gadgets and luxury items. After all, entering a market at the right time is one of the keys to success.
For every $92 spent on getting customers and generating traffic, only $1 is spent on converting these customers
This is just one of many statistics that show that we are missing opportunities and overspending in the world of online marketing and e-commerce. Some other notable statistics, which have been taken from Hosting Facts, include the following…
- Only 22 per cent of companies are happy with their conversion rates
- Only 48.2 per cent of traffic comes from human – the rest comes from bots
There are some other interesting facts that really show the importance of the online world for businesses today, as well as enlightening us to some other things to keep in mind…
- Over 615 million devices around the world have an ad-blocker installed
- If you are in the first position in Google, this will result in an average click through rate of 31.35 per cent on mobile devices and 34.36 per cent on desktop devices
- People spend around 5 hours per week, on average, shopping online
- For every $0.56 spent in an offline store out of $1 has been influenced by an interaction on a digital platform
All of these statistics are critical when it comes to giving you an understanding of where your business needs to make changes in terms of the online world. There is a clear indication that we are focusing too much on traffic and not enough on conversions, which is especially worrying when you consider the number of bots counting as traffic today.
It is also significant to see that more and more people are downloading ad-blockers on their mobile phones, which means that marketers and businesses are going to need to look for a way around this. These statistics help us to understand how the Internet is shaping up.
All things considered, hopefully, this blog post has given you a better understanding regarding the role that statistics play and how they can help us to take our businesses forward. Use the statistics that have been presented in this blog post to help you drive your company to the next level.