At the expense of sounding extremely obvious, we have to state that data is exploding everywhere around us and while statistically speaking the world produces over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every single day, most of it still not used properly by major global players. According to an article, 53% of executives in multinationals do not treat data as an asset, and others are clueless about what to do with it.
The truth is, data is only as good as its use and this tremendous amount of it is still lying around waiting for its potential to be capitalized by basically everyone running a business.
So, if giants like Ford and Johnson & Johnson are unable to fathom how to fully use the voluminous data they have available, where do you stand?
To help you through it, here are five tips that can help you get ahead on the data race and increase the efficiency of this gold mine that you own.
Know What You Want
No matter the amount of data you have gathered from all possible sources, it would only come handy once you understand what questions it needs to answer for you. In order to make sure that you are using the data analytics in the correct manner, you have to first set up objectives for your business and be clear on the problem that you want your data analyst to solve. This is called framing the problem and in case you find difficulty doing that, we have Analysis Camp can surely help you out with it.
Collect Clear Data
While it goes without saying that data is almost never perfect, it is still important to have sufficient data and that too in most effective manner. So, whether you are a small business or a large one, it is always good to devise a proper data collection policy and know exactly what you seek to know from the customers and/or industry.
An example is that if you’re a pharmaceutical, you can not make it optional on a survey form to fill in hereditary diseases by a respondent. The field has to be mandatory as it would then allow you to have a well sorted segmentation based on individual’s hereditary conditions.
Audit Your Data
Every now and then it is good to declutter and sort the piles of information you have at your disposal. This includes making segments based on customer preferences, demographics, industry insights etc. So if you have not already, start decluttering your data and make sure to properly set a database that is both accessible and useful. You may also realize along the way that some information is missing, so go back to previous step and update your data collection form to ensure no relevant data is missed out.
Personalized Marketing
According to some experts, it is unfortunate to see that most companies with gigantic amount of data are not finding it necessary to amend their marketing techniques based on it. It is about time to take this into consideration that random marketing messages to all sorts of audience may not what you need to increase you ROI (Return on Investment) and data analytics have more than one way of good use.
Start utilizing the data you have collected and send customized marketing messages such as emails, offers, discounts, product information to the limited yet extremely interested audience – with the potential to become buyer.
Expand Your Resources
You may not know but you have more data at your disposal than you think. Remember at the beginning we told you that the world is producing 2.5 quintillion bytes of data everyday? That’s 18 zeroes by the way. Well you may just have less than a fraction of the said amount, and while you can continue to collect information from your own touch points, it’s always good to see at the other end of the spectrum.
This basically means that your business should, and can, collaborate with other data mining companies, make use of the publicly available databases and further implement a data-driven culture at your organization to ensure that all your team member collectively work to add to the datasets you own.
Right data analytics is what would make you different than your competition and sooner or later, you got to up your data game.