How to Use Customer Data Analytics in Your Business: What You Need to Know

Whether you are a business leader or a marketing professional, you know that a company’s most valuable asset is its customers. Today, data analytics is the new competitive advantage. Customer data analytics is about more than just an increase in revenue and customer satisfaction levels. It is about your entire business ecosystem. In fact, it might be the most important part of modern customer development. Here are some ways to use customer data analytics in your business to create a successful strategy for your brand.

What is Customer Data Analytics?

The term “customer data analytics” means different things to different people. For some, it might mean gathering customer information to create a profile of your company’s target market. For others, it might mean analyzing the customer journey to see how customers are interacting with your business. However you define it, customer data analytics is all about using data to make smarter decisions when it comes to your customers.

Customer data analytics is not new, but some factors have made its importance more apparent in recent years. One factor has been the rise of social media platforms that allow customers to leave reviews and ask questions publicly. This has led businesses to know more about their customers than ever before, which in turn has led them to rely on customer data analytics more than ever before.

The Importance of Customer Data Analytics

The term “customer data analytics” might sound daunting, but the benefits of using customer data analytics in your business strategy are more than worth it. Data analytics will allow you to learn how customers behave on your website, which pages they frequent, and what they spend the most time on. You can also gather data about what customers like and do not like about your brand, what they find important and more. This information will help you make decisions going forward that align with customer needs and the changing needs of the marketplace.

How to Use Customer Data Analytics in Your Business

There are many ways to use customer data analytics to improve your business. Let’s focus on the two most common ways, which are:

1. Understanding Customers and Their Needs

The first step is understanding customers and their needs. This means understanding what they like about your products, what they do not like, and how you can improve upon their experience with your brand. Customer data analytics is a powerful tool for gathering this information. With customer data analytics, you can identify who uses your product or service and then look at the number of times that person has interacted with it. If you notice that a certain percentage of people do not like something about your product or service, then you might want to change that element in order to increase satisfaction levels among users.

2. Personalizing Marketing

Personalizing marketing is another way to use customer data analysis in your business strategy. When it comes to marketing, one size does not fit all. You need to be able to dynamically personalize every message so that every customer feels valued and appreciated—no matter who they are or where they live. But how do you do this? A lot of marketers have access to “predictive analytics tools” which will help them gather information about their customers based on past behavior patterns. For example, if somebody has watched a video on YouTube but has not subscribed yet, an email could be sent with an unsubscribe link embedded within the message body.

Collecting and Analyzing Data

Data analytics is a powerful tool for any business. It is important to know how to collect and analyze data so you can see what information is available and what it reveals about your customers.

You want to be able to accurately collect data from all your customers, but that might not be as easy as it sounds. You must consider the cultural nuances of your customer base, what kind of technology they use, and more. If you want a dependable source of data, you should look into using CRM analytics. CRM stands for customer relationship management, and it is one of the key tools in any successful company’s arsenal. The data analytics within CRMs can help you track everything from leads to sales.

Using the Insights from Analytics to Improve Marketing and Advertising Campaigns

One way you can use customer data analytics is to improve your marketing and advertising campaigns. The insights from customer data analytics can help you better understand how your customers are engaging with your brand, as well as what messages will resonate best with them. In today’s digital world, marketers need to be increasingly innovative and creative to stay ahead of the curve. Using customer data analytics will help you utilize your budget more efficiently by running campaigns that align with a customer’s interests.

Another way you can use customer data analytics is to develop a robust social media strategy. Social media has become a key marketing channel for companies of all sizes, but it can be challenging without a solid plan in place. Customer data analytics provides the insight needed to create an effective social media strategy, such as which networks to focus on, which messages work best for different audiences, and how often posts should happen. Modern consumers are constantly connected and actively engaged online, so using the right channels is critical for any company that wants to connect with their customers.

Using the Insights from Analytics to Improve Your Website

The first thing you should do is take a look at your website analytics. You will want to find out what customers are doing on your site, where they enter the site from, and what pages they visit. Once you know what customers are doing online, you can use this insight to improve your customer experience.

Four Ways You Can Start Using Customer Data Analytics in Your Business Today

1. Find Areas of Opportunity

It is important to know your customers as intimately as possible. And that includes their likes, dislikes, and needs. The more you know about your customer base, the better you can pinpoint areas of opportunity within your company. And the more opportunities you find, the higher chance you have of meeting those needs and making a sale.

2. See What Your Competitors Are Doing

The internet is a vast world with lots of information. You can use it to your advantage by seeing what your competitors are doing and how they are using data analytics to fuel their business success. By following them on social media or seeing what they post on their website, you can see how they are trying to lure in potential customers and what successes or failures they have seen with this tactic so far.

3. Get Early Warning Signs Before They Happen

One of the most important benefits of customer data analytics is being able to see early warning signs before they happen – whether that means a dip in sales or a shift in sentiment from customers who have been complaining for months but only just escalated things online. Being able to take preemptive action will allow you to do some damage control before it becomes an irreversible issue for your company.

4. See What Customers Are Saying About Your Brand

If something is wrong with your product or service, it may be difficult for you to determine without feedback from your buyers. Customer data analytics can help you to aggregate data from public sources to get a more holistic view of customer sentiment.

Why Your Company Should Invest in A Cloud Data Warehouse

A cloud data warehouse is a great way to store and process your company’s data. It offers an extremely steady, secure storage capacity that can help reduce costs and increase efficiency. Here are five reasons why your company should invest in one of these infrastructures:

1. Cost Reduction – Cloud data warehouses are more cost-effective than traditional on-site data warehouses because they do not have the costs associated with physical storage spaces or require physical resources for infrastructure management.

2. Storage Capacity – Traditional on-site data warehouses require the purchase of expensive hardware, like servers, which takes up space and requires constant maintenance. Cloud data warehouses do not require this type of upkeep, you only need to pay for the storage capacity you use.

3. Increased Efficiency – With a cloud-based data warehouse, your company minimizes downtime due to server crashes because it is operated remotely on the cloud. Additionally, it is easier for employees to find what they are looking for because everything is stored in one place.

4. New Technologies – The best part about new technologies is that they will always make some processes more efficient; this includes your company’s data management methods. If you decide to invest in a cloud data warehouse now, you will be able to take advantage of future technological advancements without worrying about compatibility issues with your current system.

5. Scalability – You can grow or shrink your compute to meet customer demands. For instance, if you have seasonal spikes in demand, you can automatically add computing resources and turn them off once demand lessens. This can translate to big savings to your bottom line.

Customer data analytics is essential to ensuring your business success. However, it is important that this data is accurate and accessible. The best way to keep the entire business on the same page is to leverage a cloud data warehouse environment for aggregating, processing, and managing customer data. This will ensure that your business is making informed, real-time decisions to better serve your customers.

About Traci Curran

Traci Curran serves as Director of Product Marketing at Actian focused on the Actian Data Platform. With more than 20 years of experience in technology marketing, Traci has previously held senior marketing roles at CloudBolt Software, Racemi (acquired by DXC Corporation), as well as some of the world’s most innovative startups. Traci is passionate about helping customers understand how they can accelerate innovation and gain competitive advantage by leveraging digital transformation and cloud technologies.