The ultimate guide to analytics

Imagine a stack of books piled up from the sun all the way to Pluto - the furthest planet within our solar system- and back again in a straight line. Apparently, the 2.7 Zettabytes of big data that exists today on the internet is equivalent to that distance. Astonishing? It gets even better- more than half of humanity is online and 1.9 billion people are active e-commerce users.

What does that mean for companies? First, there are a lot of opportunities and there isn’t a better time to be alive than right now. Secondly and most important; there is a lot of digital data to analyze and turn a profit for your company.

If you successfully manage to make sense of all that data, you will notice there is a pattern of predictability that could help you make better well-informed decisions for your company. Of course, it’s improbable for the human mind to accurately process all that big data and that’s why there are powerful software tools to get the job done.

Mind you, average companies lose millions of dollars every year due to poor data analytics. It’s not about quantity but the quality. Anyway, if you’re a CEO who is serious about analytics and you want to expand the business, what are some insights you should prioritize?

Customer Analysis

It’s like going out on a fishing expedition; you want to find specific species, say lobsters, but you must know where to find them otherwise you will be just chasing your tail. Customer analysis isn’t any different – although it is more complicated since you’re dealing with people.

In reality, knowing the age, gender, location, and income of the target market isn’t enough. The product manager must understand the purpose of the customers. What do they want? What do they need? What are their attitudes, habits or behaviors?

However, one of the reasons why at least 50 percent of starts up fail during their first 3 years is because they don’t invest enough resources in customer data automation and integration to improve business intelligence. Even with a big volume of customer data at your disposal, it will be useless if you don’t accurately interpret it.

Lead Conversion Rate

Okay, you’ve caught the attention of 100 potential customers, but how many can you seduce to buy your products? To improve your lead conversion rate, you must put yourself in the shoes of the buyers and make the journey as convenient as possible. Typically, the average conversion rate of most healthy businesses is between 5% to 10%, however, it depends on the industry. Anything less than 1% and you need to pull up your socks.

Data analytics tools can let you know which methods or channels generate the most leads for your business. For instance, how many leads did you convert through SEO, emails or social media? Once you figure out which metrics aren’t working out, you need to figure out why and focus on how to improve.

Competitor Analysis

Unless you’re a company that is taking people on private trips to Mars, you will likely find other companies offering the same products or services as you – some of them are bigger with more experience. However, don’t be intimidated; competition is a part of the game.

For starters, a simple Google search can assist you to identify your top ten competitors. Afterward, you can do a thorough analysis to find everything about your competitors – from traffic rank, index pages, SEO structure, website design, social media presence, linking domains, marketing campaigns, customer service, blogs, videos and buyer guides.

The objective is to find out what areas you can do better than your competitors. Otherwise, you also need to analyze what makes your competitors have an advantage over your business and establish how you can replicate or surpass their success.

Customer Feedback

Finally, after customers have bought your products or services, what better way to find out how they feel about their experience than asking them directly?

Oddly enough, you can collect a ton of customer feedback but it will be worthless if you don’t know how to do the right analysis. Usually, the most effective method is to group the feedback into sub-categories such as price, customer care, service delivery, warranty, product availability or general inquiry. Next, you need to divide those categories into negative or positive feedback.

The main priority should be to determine the root causes; what makes your customers loyal? Once you organize all your customers’ feedback, you should have a statistics chart where you can study the trends to identify any major concern.