There are numerous technological options to choose from in order to collect customers’ data. What they all share is the ability to keep track of your customers’ spending, how often they visit your website, their overall opinion of your business, etc.
Why should you care about consumer insights for your business? You can use it to improve your business in the present and the future. According to a recent article posted on Forbes 76 percent of clients believe that companies should know their needs and expectations.
The data will give you insights about your clients, providing you with an upper hand on your competitors. In this article, I’ll share just why consumer data is essential to enhance your business and how automation is used to improve your customer relations and bottom line.
Improves Customer Experience
When clients are happy with your product and service, they are more likely to come back to shop with you, which is what you want.
Data can assist in creating the best experience for them. Firstly, when you know their names and other information, you can create a more personal interaction. For example, one of the everyday email marketing hacks used by marketers is to personalise the welcome email sent to a customer with data gathered during the purchase path.
Another use case for data analysis is sentiment analytics when a text is processed to understand whether it’s positive, neutral, or negative. The words you analyse are those of reviews or comments about your business. When they’re mostly positive, you’ll know your customers are happy with their experience.
However, negative comments will give you insight on what isn’t working in your company. You can then look into ways of solving this problem, like training employees, making your website more user friendly, or improving products. Then, your customers should have a better experience shopping with you.
Customise Marketing Strategies
Data-driven marketing is a great way to attract new customers and keep loyal ones coming back. Consumer data is used to refine your approach to marketing. For example, you should understand where your customers are demographically from collecting data and make your target accordingly.
Such insights help to identify your buyer persona, the ones you should strive to reach out to gain new clients. You won’t have to waste time contacting those who aren’t likely to shop with you, and you’ll spend more time on the ones that fit your target market.
Attracting customers to return to your store is an important KPI for every retailer business continuity plan. You can often look at your shoppers’ habits, like their average spend, which products they tend to buy frequently, and how often they shop with you. Based on this commonly used insight, most merchants offer their customers with some sorts of incentives.
For example, if they usually spend about $50 every time they come in, give them a coupon for a discount when they spend $60 or more.
For this customer, this amount is reasonable and not too much to spend. They’ll want to shop because they know that next time it’ll cost less. Although you’ll be giving them a discount, they’re more likely to get into your store to spend money now with the coupon, which is better than them not coming back.
Allows You to Predict for the Future
Consumer data helps with modelling and creating predictions about your business. You will know how often you get new clients and how many loyal customers you have and see if you should rely on customer loyalty, or if you better spend more time investing in getting new ones.
Also, you can monitor how promotion campaigns worked for your profit during those times. If boosting sales is your main KPI, knowing how specific promotions are better than others is crucial. You can understand if your pricing is just right for your customers, or if it has to be changed.
There are many ways to understand how your business might look in the future based on customer data. Knowing this before it’s too late will assist you in being proactive with your business decisions.
The Bottom Line
We live in a world where you can obtain any information you want within a couple of clicks. Although it takes a little more to figure out customer data, it’s a lot easier now than ever before.
Whether you’re a huge corporation or a small business just starting out, knowing your clients’ information will improve your company. It will enhance your customer’s experience online or in person. You’ll be able to market clients more effectively with the information you have. Lastly, consumer data can help you make assumptions on what is going on with your competitor’s market.
The more you know about your customers, the better you’ll know how to run your business today and in the future.