It is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to attract and retain customers in this technology- driven world. Customers have ready access to information anywhere, anytime – they can search for products, compare prices, read reviews and even pay for their purchase using their smartphones or computers. Businesses have to be on their toes and keep up with developments in customer data analysis in order to strive and survive.
One big asset businesses today have is data – a short, four-letter word that has tremendous power. Every day, businesses generate an extremely large amount of data set. These data sets, both structured and unstructured, can be used by businesses to identify customer’s buying patterns and from there develop strategies that would work.
With a large amount of data, businesses can conduct a more accurate customer data analysis and derive a better understanding of their customers and prospects. Many large conglomerates such as Amazon and Walmart have adopted this data-driven marketing technique and today, a lot of businesses, large and small, are following suit.
How Customer Data Analysis Help In Business
A huge amount of data will not have any meaning if it is not properly analyzed and utilized. There are many customer analytics platforms out there in the market that can help businesses derive necessary data that can be used to identify patterns and trends. A better understanding of customer behavior gives businesses a competitive edge as they are able to plan strategies that are timely and relevant. Customers today have very high expectations, so, to stay relevant, businesses have to be able to understand and predict customer’s expectations and try to fulfill them in the best way
possible.
Tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Netflix have amazingly adopted customer data analysis strategies to their advantage. The sponsored posts, and product and content suggestions, although sometimes can be eerily accurate, give users a personalized experience. Such precise predictions based on users’ past behavior data are the best representation of the power of big data and predictive analytics.
For brick and mortar stores, customer data analysis provides information that allows businesses to have the right products at the right time targeted to the right customers. Customer behavior may vary based on their age, geographical location, gender, and many other factors; with proper data, businesses can make segmentation and plan their inventory and marketing strategies accordingly.
For example, stores place children’s toys and snacks on lower aisles so that they will be easily reachable by the little ones, which will translate into more conversions. This, although have been in practice before the era of data-driven marketing, today, businesses have quantifiable data to support their decision. Data is not only useful in promotion and marketing, but also in detecting red flags. Let’s say the sale of a popular product suddenly drops, customer analytics platforms will raise a red flag, and businesses can immediately identify the reasons and take appropriate action.
Customer data analysis and data-driven marketing have become essential in organizations, without which, it is very difficult to compete and stay ahead of the competition. Customer experience has become the selling point and big data and analytics have eased the path for businesses, especially with the mushrooming of various user-friendly customer analytics platforms. In short, for businesses to stay ahead, they must be willing to go ahead with times.
