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7 Ways Small Businesses Can Leverage Big Data

by Steve Jones•

The amount of data in the world is increasing rapidly. By the time you are done reading this article, 700,000 Facebook posts will be uploaded, 100 million texts will be sent, and 25 GB of traffic will be received on the web. Big data is everywhere, from the social media we use to the Netflix shows you watch, but did you know your small businesses can leverage big data?

Big data helps to drive business revenue because it provides insights into customer behavior. This intelligence can help you to dig deeper into the psyche of consumers and establish what they really think. You can guess what consumers buy, when, and how. While big data is not a crystal ball, it can undoubtedly assist you make faster and more informed business decisions. Big data isn’t just for the big companies anymore. Small businesses can also leverage big data to drive success. Read on to find out how.

  1. Build a strong brand identity

Your brand identity can make or break your business, especially in a competitive industry. Luckily, you can leverage big data to build a strong brand identity from the start, or identify where your current brand identity might be falling short. Big data can help you understand how people perceive your brand ”both the traits you want to be known for and those you don’t. This allows you to identify your strengths as well as opportunities for improvement. Taking the big data approach to customer perception gives a much more comprehensive view of your brand than one-one-one customer interviews ever could. This data can inform everything from brand partnerships to logo design. For instance, you can use a big data platform to analyze what people are saying about your new logo color or font choice. With data to back up your logo design decisions, you can more confidently iterate using a free logo maker until you perfect your design.

  1. Cut Costs

Small businesses can leverage big data to cut costs by identifying redundant workflows and expensive processes. Big data can help you to identify areas in your business that you need to scale up or down. Taking the guesswork out of where your money is going has big financial benefits for even the smallest business. Aside from simply cutting costs, big data can also better attribute revenue to different sources. This allows you to avoid accidentally cutting costs that might have a larger payoff down the line.

  1. Manage Your Team Better

Big data allows you to get the most out of your team. It allows you to identify employees who offer the most value, as well as those who require further training or require more resources. These insights help you to increase productivity and keep your team happy. Big data can also address employee happiness more directly. Data on employee behaviour can signal important information about your workforce’s wellbeing. When paired with direct feedback from employees, this allows you to pinpoint where and why employee happiness might be faltering. With a clearer view of how your employees are feeling, you can work to boost moods and morale more efficiently.

  1. Understand your customers better

Understanding the true value of your customers isn’t easy. While many companies have an abundance of marketing and sales data, making sense of that information takes work. Turning that data into meaningful insights about your customers requires rigorous analysis. Big data helps you to analyze your customer’s behavior, know them better and predict purchases. Importantly, you’ll also be able to understand which customer purchases are worth pursuing. Knowing the most valuable customers can help you come up with effective marketing strategies.

  1. Enhance customer service

Big data can help small businesses improve their customer service. If you receive customers‘ feedback via phone, email, chat, or social media, there is a large amount of data you receive in the process, which you can leverage to improve your customer service. Analyzing this data can reveal your customers biggest frustrations and obstacles to purchase, which you can then work on removing. But it can also reveal what different customers value about your brand. Big data analytics can help you achieve personalized customer service by engaging with different customers at a personal level and creating messages designed for different key groups. This kind of one-to-one connection will delight your customers, ultimately translating into conversions.

  1. Personalized Promotion and Special Offers

Personalization is the future in marketing. According to a recent study, about 50% of customers spend more time with brands that provide a personalized web experience. In the same study, about 80% of the respondents indicated that they were willing to share their personal details with a company that delivers a more personalized mobile experience.

Every customer has their own unique preference, and businesses should not treat every customer in the same manner. Big data can help to personalize promotions by analyzing the type of products a customer purchases. For instance, if a customer has purchased blue pants of a specific size and type, then they could give them a prompt discount for this type of clothing. Such a special offer creates a sense that you know the customer well, and they are more likely to purchase as long as you offer them what they exactly need.

  1. Build loyalty

Acquiring new customers is a sign that your business is growing, but loyal customers are what keep the business alive. With big data, you can create a rich profile of every customer, which you can leverage to create a relationship with them. Personal profiles allow businesses to provide customers with experiences that resonate with them. One area you might look into is localizing offers to customer locations. You can build up loyalty by offering promotions using customers‘ delivery or billing addresses or give localized discounts. A localized discount could be anything, from a special delivery discount based on their location to a promotion based on their favorite local holiday destination. Localization is far from the only area of personalization that builds loyalty. With extensive and accessible customer data, you can find what works for every customer’s loyalty.

Endnote

Even the smallest businesses have plenty of data beyond the usual analytics provided by business intelligence providers such as Google. If you are not acting on the data that you already have, you are falling behind your competitors who are using data to their advantage. Use big data to build a strong brand identity, cut costs, improve productivity, improve customer service and build loyalty.

 

Are you on e-commerce retailer still in the dark about the data available you and how you can use the data to boost sales and find new opportunities? Are you unable to access the right data and consequently unable to correctly measure your marketing ROI? Are you unable to link all the individual customer data together because of lack of resources or the right technology?

If you answered ‘yes’ to all or some of the questions above, you are in luck. The widespread use of social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp, as well as the rise in social media groups and pages, is an indication of the fact that e-commerce is a huge game changer for businesses.

 

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