Data is worth its weight in gold in the Information Era. With the right data, you can make informed business decisions, better meet your customers’ needs, and ramp up your rate of growth. You can use data in every work area, from product development to customer acquisition and retention – and everything in between.

Here, Bizdata explains everything you need to know about data analytics as a business owner and some suggestions on how to use it to drive business growth:

What is data analytics?

Data analytics, according to Coursera, is the practice of deriving insights from data, which are then used to make informed decisions. Oftentimes, business leaders’ base decisions on emotions and observations as opposed to verifiable facts. This is what data-driven decision-making (DDDM) is all about. You can use it to make strategic decisions. Companies that do so have above-average profitability and are better at maintaining customer loyalty. 

How to get started with data analytics

Data analytics doesn’t have to be rocket science. You can create a basic system, implement it in a single business area, make refinements, and then expand it to apply to other areas if necessary. Here are some suggestions for getting started:

1. Use an appropriate solution for data gathering or analysis

There are data analytics solutions out there that you can integrate into existing apps or third-party ones to analyze relevant data. For instance, Bizdata offers an advanced real-time data analytics, visualization, and integration solution. You can integrate into an existing enterprise-grade solution and comfortably view, manage, and analyze data via a remote, intuitive dashboard.

2. Monitor web traffic

The traffic that visits your business website is a valuable font of information. By monitoring key web metrics like bounce rate, visit length, conversion rate, and click-through rate, you can better understand your visitors’ needs and improve your content or services to better appeal to them.

3. Keep an eye on social media

64 percent of business owners collect data from social media sites – and so should you. Your social media feed and user activity offer a direct peek into customers’ thoughts and feelings about your business. You can track metrics like likes, shares, follows, and complaints.

4. Come up with a suitable strategy

Every business needs a suitable data analytics strategy. The typical process is collecting data, cleaning it, identifying patterns, and making predictions. Different data modeling techniques may be used, depending on your needs. The ideal strategy for you depends on your niche and the kind of data you need. Use a combination of strategies if necessary.

Where you can use data analytics to transform your business

 Here are some high-impact examples of how data analytics can help your business:

1. Customer acquisition and retention

Customers are the lifeblood of every business. You need to find new ones and maintain relationships with existing ones to keep growing. Data analytics can come in handy for both. You can gather data to find out customer preferences, purchase patterns, and generally how to keep them happy. You can use CRM software to gather relevant customer data. It also helps you manage relationships with customers and generate new leads. Pick CRM software that best suits your business size and type.

2. Marketing products and services

You can create better, more impactful marketing campaigns with data analytics. The goal is to analyze metrics like cost per acquisition (CPA), bounce rate, multi-touch attribution, and customer lifetime value (CLV) to come up with better landing pages, ad copy, and promotional material in general.

For instance, you can determine what kind of business banners – the style, color scheme, and the like – best appeal to your customers on your website or social media. Business banners make you more memorable and credible and can be put anywhere. You can use a banner maker to come up with a banner that fits your brand. You can easily customize the text, color, and font – and even add animation or video. 

3. Customer care and service

Data analytics is a powerful customer care and service tool. You can use it to find customer pain points, bring information to your customers, keep your teams updated, and serve customers faster. You can also use data analytics to personalize your offerings too. 

Business process management (BPM) is a powerful methodology to consider

Business process management (BPM) is a powerful methodology every business leader needs to consider. It deals with automating and optimizing processes and workflows after analyzing how people, systems, and data interact. You operate more efficiently by streamlining and improving previously laborious business operations, essentially. If you’re creating a BPM framework, make sure you constantly monitor its effectiveness and then act on the monitored info to refine your framework further. Find guidance for digital process automation here.

Conclusion

Data analytics can help you cut down on errors and inefficiencies caused by estimates. You’ll need a solid data analytics strategy, and data analytics methodologies like business process management can help. You’ll be able to transform your customer acquisition, retention, marketing products and services, and general customer care with data analytics.