In today’s modern age, data-driven decision-making is imperative to your sales and marketing strategies, but not every business owner knows how to use the information available to them to their full advantage.
Business data like customer info, sales figures, website traffic, social media analytics, etc. all play a crucial role in understanding how you’re performing and knowing where and how you can improve.
Here’s a quick look at what you can and should be doing with your business data to really reap the benefits.
Understanding How to Gather Business Data
First of all, it’s important that you know where and how to acquire all this data we’re talking about. Certain metrics, like your social media engagement and website traffic is available to you for free simply by accessing your accounts.
However, you can also invest in CRM software and other tools to help you gather more insights. For example, a Shopify RFM analysis is a great way to understand more about your customer behavior over the long-term. Decide what information will be most useful to you and start investing in the tools that will help you gather and analyze that data.
Analyze Customer Behavior
One of the most important things you can do with your business data is understand and analyze how your customers behave and interact with your business, products, and marketing.
If you’ve been thinking of why to invest in CRM software, this is the most simple answer. Having a clear overview of your customer interactions, purchases and preferences will help you create buyer personas and understand what your real customers really respond to.
Personalize Your Marketing
Any marketing strategy is better than no marketing strategy, but a data-driven marketing approach is always going to be the most successful. Taking your customer behavior information and using it to optimize your marketing messages to what has proved tried and true simply makes sense.
Analyzing your customer data will allow you to make personalized recommendations to your customers, and better understand what kinds of promotions and campaigns they’re going to respond to.
Optimize Pricing
When you have all this information at your fingertips, you can also better understand the role that your pricing plays in your sales success. You can use the data you gather from your various sources to assist you in developing your pricing strategy.
Note changes in customer behavior (such as purchasing patterns and demand) in response to price increases and other pricing factors, and use this information to help you strike a good balance between profitability and overall customer perception.
Manage Your Inventory
Finally, you can even use your business data to help you manage your stock orders and inventory more efficiently.
Having solid data and statistics to work with will allow for more accurate demand forecasting, which in turn will help you make more informed decisions when it comes to ordering stock and negotiating with suppliers. Simply put, understanding buying patterns and customer preferences will overall help you understand and manage your own business better.