Today’s consumer is more value-oriented and less loyal than ever before, the rapid increase in startup culture has everyone looking for the next big thing and because of this, the business environment is more disruptive than ever, with consumers ready to jump ship the moment they find something better, faster, stronger.
With customer expectations increasing, the competitive landscape growing, and the avalanche of data, marketers needs more than intuition and experience to succeed.
This is where analytics come in, to drive actionable insights, enhance marketing strategies, and optimize marketing efforts.
Work it Harder
Performing analytics, however, takes time and skill, so why make the effort and investment? A recent Big Data Analytics study by Accenture reported that companies who invested in analytics teams saw a 50% improvement in demand driven operations over companies that did not invest and that those that invested had more effective operations processes and higher sales volume.
Make it Better
So, how can we use analytics to drive growth? While analytics can be used to answer questions in any area of your business, marketing analytics help answer questions such as: “Which customers are worth paying a lot of attention to? Which ones are worth less?” Here are five growth opportunities that analytics help evaluate:
- How to acquire more valuable customers
- How to acquire customers who will buy more
- How to acquire customers who will buy higher value products/services
- How to retain high value customers longer
Determine which marketing activities have the greatest impact on accelerating and improving customer acquisition and retention
Do it Faster
Companies use analytics to make decisions related to business operations, staffing and skill requirements, customer strategy, positioning and messaging, and marketing optimization. With so many possible projects, it may be hard to determine where to start.
To prioritize, we recommend you evaluate projects against two criteria: value derived (from low to high) and ease of execution (from easy to hard). Score each project and classify them into one of four categories.
- High-Value/Easy-to-Execute- Must Do’s
- Low-Value/Easy-to-Execute- Quick Hits (things you can do in 30 days or less)
- High-Value/Hard-to-Execute- Transformative
- Low-Value/Hard-to-Execute- Nice to Have, but Not Necessary
When prioritizing, we recommend you focus on the high-value/easy-to-execute first. Then tackle the low-value/easy-to-execute tasks while you put a plan in place to address the high-value/hard-to-execute projects.
Make Us Stronger
It has probably become evident that an analytics approach to marketing takes skills and resources. In their book The Four Pillars of Profit-Driven Marketing, authors Leslie Moeller and Edward Landry claim that just being good at analytics is not enough. Analytics and the tools to disseminate the insights from them and the organizational infrastructure are the keys to success.
Are you ready to start building your analytical muscle? Start by reading our white paper “Marketing Analytics Centers of Excellence " Fueling Corporate Growth” and then Contact Us to discover the specific areas you and your organization needs to focus on.
Start by buying the workbook “Roadmap to Excellence: Six Essential Steps for Developing a Marketing Operations Function.”
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