How does Data Analytics Help Drive Better Business Decisions?

Have you ever heard of data analytics? If not, you’re missing out on one of the hottest trends in the business right now.

Consider the following statistics:

• According to IDC, global revenues for business analytics and big data hit $150.8 billion in 2017, a significant rise of 12.4 percent over the previous year.
• Moreover, the commercial purchases of services, software, and hardware meant to support analytics and big data exceeded $210 billion.

The truth is, big data analytics has become a key pillar in enabling digital transformation efforts across global business processes and industries.

All you need to do is create an organized system of data analytics that encourages smarter business decisions and helps you stay ahead of the ever-growing competition.

 

Why Do You Need Data Analytics?

According to a study, nearly 1.7 megabytes of new data will be created every second for every individual on the planet by the year 2020. Use this data to discover new market trends, composition, prospects’ priority, and other useful information that may help your organization frame well-informed B2B decisions.

To examine the large quantity of B2B company data, however, data analytics is necessary and can be performed with the help of specialized applications and software tools that facilitate data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, forecasting, and data optimization.

Consider the following example:

The $40 billion healthcare business Merck developed MANTIS (Manufacturing and Analytics Intelligence), a data warehousing system, to achieve meaningful results. Able to crunch social media, video, and text in structured and unstructured systems, MANTIS allowed non-technical business analysts to view data in visualization software and reduced the time and the cost of the company’s overall portfolio of analytics projects by 45 percent. Average lead time also dropped by 30 percent.

Be prepared to encounter two challenges while implementing data analytics in your business:

• First, break down data silos to access all the B2B data stored within various systems in your organization.
• Second, develop platforms capable of pulling in unstructured data as easily as structured data.

 

How Is Data Analytics Worth Your Time?

Put the existing information to good use. Improve your website traffic and maintain clear records of all your online activity, so you can use data analytics to find distinctive patterns in the day-to-day usage and behavior of consumers. Remember the more customer information you have, the better you can cater to their needs.

It’s no wonder Gartner mentions how analytics consistently ranks among the three most important marketing capabilities. At the same time, 48 percent suggest that marketing analytics is difficult to hire and retain.

Thankfully, plenty of tools are available to help you utilize your marketing data for informed business decisions. These tools serve various functions, including:

• Measurement: Gauge the impact of ad campaigns and marketing efforts.
• Optimization: Change your spending routines and tactics to get better results.
• Experiments: Plan and execute various tests to isolate causes.
• Segmentation: Recognize groups and subgroups of current buyers and potential customers.
• Predictive Modeling: Develop computer models for better response rates and provide more customized offers, content, treatments, etc.
• Storytelling: Act on the messages gathered from data for better decisions.

Use the right software tools to carry out your own data analytics in marketing, especially for enterprise SEO campaigns, and figure out how to maximize your marketing efforts.

 

Measurement

Determine the reach and effectiveness of your business marketing campaigns via measurement. Use the results to answer important questions about the number of people who have logged in, clicked on, and converted from the different marketing channels. Check the overall view of your business campaigns and determine where exactly your businesses have had the most success.

Employ software like Google Analytics to set up and track campaign parameters and find out which ads are generating the most revenue. Also, implement funnel and conversion goals to find out the conversion rate of your web traffic, and detect any hiccups in the process.

 

Optimization

Tools like Instapage help to optimize your marketing strategies and sites based on conversions. Ideally, spend money in places that have seen the largest ROI, and improve your site based on visitor count and popularity. Launch an email content with content that receives the most number of clicks. Be sure to optimize each aspect of the online marketing process, so customers have another reason to convert – a great user experience.

• Create and design the landing page for your business website.
• Use pre-designed templates for this purpose or make your own design.
• When the landing page is complete, conduct A/B testing to get results on the best-forming pages.
• Get the latest insights on page performance from real-time robots.
• Don’t forget to include a tracking pixel for conversion data not connected to the landing page.

 

Experiments

Detect patterns and prove/disprove theories regarding the success of your business’ marketing efforts through experiments. Include everything, from design to web copy, publication time to publishing outlet, in your experiments for more precise results. Also, never be afraid to test things out before committing. This way, ensure you get the best ROI and all the money you invested in a campaign didn’t go to waste.

Harness the power of tools like Zarget to access data on the way your customers use your website.

• Use the A/B testing functionality to test multiple versions of your web pages.
• Put the heat mapping feature to good use and find out where your buyers are spending most of their time.
• Get detailed results including the numerical aggregate click data of the total number of users who clicked on various elements of your website.
• Form analytics help you determine the point at which visitors abandon the form-filling process as well as their reasons for doing so.

 

Segmentation

Divide casual shoppers from qualified leads with segmentation. At the same time, get comprehensive information regarding your customers so you can target them individually. Know who your buyers are, where they come from, and their purchase intent. This way, group them better and identify their unmet requirements and needs.

Use tools like Autopilot to pinpoint the accuracy of your marketing efforts. Set triggers according to user behavior. Also, acquire customer information from CRM or customer support integration to populate your segments with more data.

 

Predictive Modeling

Make accurate predictions about your buyers by drilling down to the granular level and identifying shoppers on the basis of the marketing campaigns that appeal to them. Provide more customized recommendations, and use historical demographic and purchase data to identify usage and sales cycles. Target prospects on the basis of when they have a higher chance of buying a specific service or product.

• Use Radius for detailed insight into your most promising customers.
• Find ways to target them better the next time.
• Gather data from various software tools such as your marketing automation program and CRM, so you’re able to track the best leads and act on insights.
• Get a detailed look at market trends not only about your customers but from public data across millions of businesses.

 

Storytelling

Implement this often forgotten method of marketing analytics to collect data and interpret the narrative properly based on a whole set of data as well as the factors affecting it. Use a dashboard like TapClicks to begin the storytelling process. Collect and populate data from numerous marketing platforms, including social media websites like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Transform this data into graphs and dashboards to get a clearer idea of how your marketing efforts are faring across different channels. Go down to the individual campaign level to take a closer look at campaign performance and take business decisions as per the reports.

 

Use Closed-Loop Data

Utilize the power of digital analytics to tie marketing functions to sales. For example, your blog may generate leads but to find out whether those leads actually convert customers and increase your revenue, rely on closed-loop marketing analytics. Simply connect your digital analytics system to your customer relationship management (CRM) platform, such as the HubSpot CRM, and you’re good to go.

• Use this closed-loop data to understand if your solo marketing efforts actually yield any results for the bottom line of your business.
• Determine the channels that are most helpful for driving sales.
• Discover fresh insights, such as your blog being highly effective at generating customers, or social media being effective only as an engagement mechanism instead of a source of sales.

 

Concluding Remarks

Data analytics allows less data-savvy businessmen and marketers to collect and analyze their online efforts. While analyzing data is a combination of logic and creativity, with the right tools, businesses can surprise themselves with how beneficial the process proves towards making informed, productive decisions that affect the future of the company.