This is why plenty of people remain uncomfortable about the prospect of applying it to anything other than financial or campaign-related matters. Conventional wisdom resists the treatment of workers as utilities, and doesn’t like reducing productivity to simple facts and figures.

But this is based on a myopic and outdated view of what the analytics process involves. It doesn’t fully supplant human opinion, nor does it render shallow judgments about workers. Instead, it’s merely a tool: something to supplement human efforts.

Used well, analytics can significantly improve team productivity and performance. How does this work? Let’s take a closer look at this core element of modern business:

They can help efforts to raise morale

Team productivity is about far more than the qualities and skills of the individuals involved. It’s also about how the team members feel, and how they interact. Morale — both individual and on a team basis — is a mission-critical concern, because an unhappy team will struggle to perform and become stressed very easily.

So, how can analytics help you boost morale? There are several ways:

• They can showcase successes. It’s always important for a business to celebrate when things go well, but there isn’t always some obvious profit figure to bring up. With analytics, you can get a more granular look at how things are going, and pick out the precursors to that type of success eventually arriving (the small wins). For instance, you could celebrate a significant uplift in search rankings for important terms, knowing the corresponding uplift in conversion that’s likely to follow.
• They can highlight employee strengths. People like being praised, and while you should certainly look for weaknesses to improve upon, you should also find the strengths to highlight. It might be something as simple as one employee yielding more value per hour, hitting a certain number of tasks completed in a day, or getting exceptional comments from customers on a consistent basis.
• They can guide feedback surveys. Getting full feedback from employees is vitally important, because no amount of analytics can tell you how people feel — but your data can help you create better surveys. For instance, if you notice that a particular process is quite slow, you can ask specifically-related questions, then use the answers to make meaningful improvements that wouldn’t have been possible had you not known about that issue before consulting people.

They can identify operational roadblocks

Digging into the metrics of your everyday operations is a great way to glean insight into the holdups: the snags along the way that prevent everything from running optimally smoothly. For instance, you might notice that one of your internal processes is taking markedly longer than comparable processes — closer inspection might reveal an easy-to-fix bug.

Analytics can also help you monitor where employee time is going, information that can be very informative when it comes to attitude. For instance, you might discover that one of your employees whose role is to write copy actually spends a lot of time handling HR disputes, or that your head of finances is consistently distracted by requests from your design team.

In response, you can try some classic A/B testing when it comes to team composition and organization (provided you know how to interpret the results). Make some alterations, let people work for a few weeks, then compare the analytics of that period to those of the period preceding it. Keep doing this, and you’ll figure out the team arrangement that gets the most work done.

You can also use this data to identify areas that warrant investment in automation. Losing a lot of time handling admin for your scheduling? Try something like Calendly or x.ai to make your meeting easier. Picking through payroll on a manual basis? Given modest SaaS pricing, something like Wave’s payroll software will more than return its value given the chance.

They can support clearer incentives

Properly incentivizing performance is essential for keeping performance at a high level year-round — without it, your employees will start taking opportunities to lessen their workloads, lowering their productivity and paying less attention to what they’re doing. It won’t even be intentional in every case. Dedication is a hard thing to maintain, and people can burn out.

Because a well-implemented analytics system gives you a deep and broad perspective on everything that’s happening with your business, you can discover which elements are going well and which are underperforming. You can then set simpler metric-based incentives using the S.M.A.R.T system, e.g. improve metric X by 10% in two months and receive reward Y.

It’s far better than asking for general improvements and gauging them subjectively, as employees aren’t likely to respond to that approach. It’s not pleasant to put a lot of work into something but have a promotion denied because your boss doesn’t believe in you. Far better to let the data speak on your behalf.

Implementing a system for collecting and parsing comprehensive analytics won’t solve all your problems, nor will it push anyone into redundancy — but it will give you the added insight you need to make your team members happier, less stressed, and more motivated. Why wouldn’t you want that?

The post How Analytics Can Help Improve Team Productivity & Performance appeared first on Reflective Data.

For that, you first need to understand big data a bit more. As the term itself suggests, big data is nothing but a vast volume of information that businesses receive daily in structured or unstructured formats. How and in what quantity this data arrives is not as important as how these are used. The use of the term “big data” is relatively a recent phenomenon, but if you are aware, business houses have long been collecting and storing data in large quantities since eons; just the number of such sources which supply data has increased encompassing social media, in-app purchases, online shopping behavior, etc.

Big data helps SEO

SEO practices depend on the use of large quantities of data, which is nothing but big data. As you know, search engine optimization is an endeavor to enhance the search result rankings of a website based on the availability of online data. The search engine giants like Google direct visitors to pages that appear to be relevant or authoritative. Whether a site is trustworthy or not is determined by the number and quality of links it gets from other websites. That’s why an SEO expert makes every attempt to develop content that is authoritative to gain a higher position in the rankings.

The role of SEO in marketing campaigns is well-known to everyone, but its techniques continuously change due to the evolution of big data. Here is a brief insight into how big data is contributing to improving SEO practices.

Content

Online content refers to any amount of published information, and every page of content is quantifiable online. Search engines analyze these content pieces and direct visitors to the relevant results based on their searches. Now, the catch is what a search engine may think to be most important for a query may not be favorable for your business. This situation can be taken care with online reputation management services. For that, a digital marketing firm needs to work on the visibility of their client’s business and bring positive content on the top by pushing negative details down.

Social Media

Social networking sites churn a large amount of data, which search engine giants cannot afford to ignore. And this has been possible because so many users in large numbers continue to join these social channels over time. You get proof of this when you look at the user base of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and so on. That’s why enterprises are focused on improving their presence on these social platforms to improve their rankings in the search engines.

Intelligent machines

Why big data is so useful is because it emphasizes more on people than search engines. It lets you take a peep into the buying and browsing behavior of your customers. And since things are transparent online, people also don’t hesitate to accept cookies or elicit their check-in details of specific locations on social media.

Since the user-driven data carries weight, computers and mobile devices are also becoming intelligent and faster in their responses to search-related queries.

Trust factor

As time passes, big data will soon become a regular part of everyone’s life where no one would have hesitation to share details. Online advertisements customized to suit different needs will be acceptable and will help make lives easy and comfortable. The dependence on digital devices will grow, which necessarily would lead to the generation of more accurate big data for various needs. However, this doesn’t encourage spamming. Only the sources of marketing information will change.

Customer experience

Big data will lead to better customer experiences and business results. Search engines will be empowered to fetch targeted results based on preferences, choices, and location details. It is already happening in the e-commerce businesses, though. But things will become more specific in the coming days.

Deeper SEO insights

Search engines convert website content into quantifiable data. And in coming days, these will be able to produce more accurate results, which marketers can use for insights. It is because of big data that SEO applies different techniques, such as keywords, on-page optimization, linking, to reach out to their customers. All the efforts combining local SEO, content marketing, and mobile data will help generate accurate user insights, and this can be possible only because of the contribution of big data.

Today, big data has become a powerful SEO tool for businesses. Companies can sift through a large volume of data quickly to understand what performs better for them. They can primarily obtain a 360degree view of the customer, right from what they are looking for to what they prefer more. User behavior becomes more comfortable to locate. From this, it is not difficult to understand why companies would depend on big data for their digital marketing practices. After all, big data help them in better targeting of their services, improving customer experiences, and increasing their visibility in the relevant marketplace. When all this happens smoothly, operations and revenue will naturally grow.

So, if you have been wondering why big data is critical for SEO practices, you need to reconsider your observations once. When big data marries SEO strategies, it can conquer all the hurdles and give your company the desired visibility and wider reach to its users. The chances of conversion will also improve.

The post How Is Big Data Impacting Search Engine Optimization appeared first on Reflective Data.

How do you know which subject lines are most effective? Do you know if a traffic boost is from the last email you sent or a previous one, or is it from something else entirely? Are people even reading the unique content you send out?

That’s where marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) come into the equation. They are metrics that highlight improvements, successes or even failures.

KPIs can be used to show what works in an email campaign, what doesn’t and how things can be improved. Metrics can also be used to track performance in all areas of business, including live events, customer feedback or general sales.

If you want to optimize your email marketing campaigns, the following 10 KPIs are what you should be paying attention to.

1. Open Rate

It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do, be it chasing more sales, generating leads or simply increasing traffic to a site. If no one opens your emails, then it’s all for nought.

The open rate KPI tells you how many people opened your email, read what was contained within and where it ended up. It’s not always reliable, because some email services automatically mark a message as read when you scroll by.

Even so, it’s a valid indicator of who’s interested in your content and who isn’t. Higher numbers reveal the success of a campaign.

2. Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate tells you how many people followed the links contained within your email.

If a tool doesn’t provide this, you can divide the total clicks by the emails delivered and multiply it by 100. The result is the percentage of users following your links.

3. Conversion Rate

While most metrics track specific actions, this one is more about the end result. It focuses on why you sent the email or campaign in the first place, and whether or not your goal was met.

For example, did you want customers to make a purchase, register on your site or browse web content? Whatever it is you wanted your audience to do, how many actually followed through? That is your conversion rate.

It tells you what your campaign achieves and whether or not your audience is interested in its content.

4. Total Sales

The total sales metric involves the full impact of sales as a result of the email campaign. It’s not only about sales directly from email, but also what customers and visitors do as a result. Maybe they didn’t like a product featured in the email, but bought something else instead.

5. Total Number of Unsubscribes

If people don’t enjoy your content, they’re going to unsubscribe. This metric is as important as your new subscriber rates. If you’re bleeding followers, then you’re clearly doing something wrong — and you’ll never know what’s happening if you’re not tracking it.

6. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a lot like unsubscriber counts with one exception: most of these events are accidental. When an email bounces, it means either the address in question is not correct, not in use, falsified or a server is down. On some rare occasions, a bounce may happen because an inbox is full.

Either way, this occurs when there is a delivery problem — which means one less person is receiving your emails and improvements are needed.

7. Cost Per Lead

What is the total cost to acquire a new customer or generate a lead? How much are you spending to develop an email, send it out and reply to various communications? Do you have a dedicated team in place, or are you doing it yourself? These are all things to consider.

8. Time on-Site

You may be generating a lot of traffic as a result of an email marketing campaign, but is it truly worthwhile? Are your visitors staying on-site long enough to make a difference? Is it translating to sales or conversions?

9. Contact List Growth

Most marketers have a system in place to collect new email addresses, which are then added to their newsletter or updates list. Over time, it means the contact list for a campaign grows instead of shrinking.

This is an important metric to track. Not only does it tell you how big an audience your emails are reaching, but it also signals just how effective a campaign is.

10. Social Growth

Alongside traffic, you might also be looking to grow social exposure or follower counts through an email campaign. This is another metric to track if so.

KPIs Can Help Achieve Your Goals

Depending on what you wish to achieve, you don’t necessarily have to monitor every KPI on this list — there are others, too. Choose metrics that align with your goals. If you want to boost follower or audience count, then you should be looking at bounce, unsubscribe and open rates. If you want to increase site traffic, then look at click-through rates, time on-site and social growth.

The 10 email marketing KPIs you see here are some of the most important, meaning you really can’t afford to ignore them.

Cover Photo by Hoster on Unsplash

The post 10 Important Email Marketing KPIs You Can’t Afford to Overlook appeared first on Reflective Data.

In ideal circumstances — provided you have the resources, the time, and a plan for separating the wheat from the chaff — you’ll bring in data from all possible sources (your internal analytics, market research, and customer surveys, to name just a few). But how should you structure the analysis efforts? Not every area or metric is worthy of granular investigation, after all.

Well, there’s a whole host of elements that warrant attention, but here we’re going to look at purchase data (everything you glean from the orders your customers have placed). Analysis of this data is absolutely essential to your operation — here’s why:

It will help you adapt to consumer habit changes

The consumer market moves forward, sometimes slowly, but never falling entirely static. New products are released, existing products pick up steam due to promotion or word-of-mouth recommendation, and previous hit items fall out of favour or are discontinued. The more rapidly you can adapt to the changes (and even predict what’s just over the horizon), the more strongly you can take advantage of them.

These changes, of course, don’t happen out of nowhere. A product won’t generally go from popular to written-off overnight — instead, it will gradually lose its popularity before eventually reaching a tipping point at which it might as well no longer be sold. By analysing the purchase data of your customers, you can discern which products are rising or falling in the ranks, and draw inferences about what product types are gaining or losing value.

You might see that sales of skateboarding accessories have risen steadily throughout the last year, for instance, in which case you’d have good reason to think that it might be a niche worth investigating — and if you check Google Trends and discover that interest is rising across the board (for whatever reason), you could make a concerted effort to target skateboarders.

Patterns support enhanced marketing tactics

Marketing is a core concern for retailers, particularly in the online realm where you can’t rely on people merely happening upon your store and wanting to shop there. The more efficient you can make your marketing, the better its ROI will become — you’ll sell more, and spend less to win those sales. And since digital marketing is inherently suited to complex targeting (relying on smart segmentation of customer sets), customer trends are hugely valuable.

For example, if your purchase data shows that shoppers from a particular region or country have spent 35% more on food products, you can dig deeper into that stat to figure out some tweaks to your marketing. Could you market other food products to those people? Is there a specific reason why that area is so concerned with food? There could be a new hit cookery show, or a big trend towards healthy eating.

If you identified the latter as the culprit, you could take advantage by marketing other health products to people in that area (you could even use a product discovery tool like Product Hunt to find more). The more you know about customer habits, the more sophisticated you can get with persuading them to spend even more with you.

The data is relatively straightforward to collect

Some types of data (e.g. customer feedback) are somewhat laborious to collect, because you need to incentivise them somehow and then actively chase them — and even then, you might have a dataset that’s both limited (most people prefer not to comment) and biased (the people most likely to provide feedback are those either very happy or very angry with your service).

Purchase data, though, requires next to no effort to collect. No matter what platform you use, you’ll end up with basic purchase records (they’re necessary for customer accounts and support requests). What’s more, if you use something with rich native data (the Shopify ecomm service has GA’s Enhanced Ecommerce features running out of the box, for instance), then you’ll have tagged funnel stages at your disposal — possibly without even realising it.

Will any ecommerce solution give you a flawlessly-parsed analytics dashboard from the outset? No, of course not — that’s why you’re best served finding someone to help you get everything usefully tagged and categorised. But all the data is there and ready to use, not costing you anything or causing you any strife. Why wouldn’t you make the most of it?

Loyal customers deserve additional effort

Customer loyalty is of paramount importance to sellers of all kinds, but particularly ecommerce sellers. It’s tough to stand out through pricing or product selection in the digital marketplace, and winning someone’s loyalty will give you the edge regardless, so you need to prioritise it. But how do you know which customers to focus on? Simple — your purchase data will tell you.

By checking your customer histories, you can pick out those who have placed the most orders and/or spent the most money with you, then make an effort to serve the needs of those customers. You can reach out to them for direct feedback, ask them what improvements you could make, and even offer them incentives to spend more and/or bring you referral customers.

When you don’t pay much attention to what your customers buy or how they shop, you can’t go the extra mile to cater to those with the most value. Keep loyal customers happy, and you’ll reduce your churn rate, convert on a more frequent basis, and achieve remarkable stability.

For all of these reasons, putting in the time to closely analyse the purchasing habits of your customers is a highly-effective way to improve your marketing, adapt to changing circumstances, and cultivate immense customer loyalty. If you’re not doing this type of analysis already, what are you waiting for?

The post Why It’s Essential You Analyze The Purchase Data Of Your Customers appeared first on Reflective Data.

Visualizing data is all about parsing it and presenting it in a fashion that reveals the underlying trends, turning those raw metrics into meaningful stats and patterns. It’s valuable in many ways, but something you may not have considered is the extent to which it can better equip a brand to provide exceptional customer experiences.

How exactly does it have this effect? Allow me to explain. Let’s take a look at 6 ways in which data visualization can help brands improve their customer experiences:

It can make reports more impactful

SaaS brands don’t just sell their products or services and move on — they’re in the business of helping their clients achieve things, and since many of those clients have their own clients to deal with, providing robust reporting functionality is essential for any large-scale software solution (ecommerce and social media tools are obvious examples). Of course, there are always third-party reporting solutions to fill in any gaps.

If you’re running a retail business and you’re trying to make a case for further investment (or trying to negotiate a deal with a potential supplier), which is going to prove more effective: offering up a dry set of your top metrics, or presenting a clear and crisp visualization of your long-term performance? The better a brand can support its clients in creating clear reports, the better it can make its customer experiences.

It can cut through junk metrics

Make no mistake: the more data you collect, the more junk metrics you’ll end up with. The more you stare at static, the more likely you are to start seeing patterns that don’t mean anything, and it’s frustrating when reviewing data to know that much of what you’re seeing is meaningless. Visualization is extremely useful for looking past those junk metrics and finding what matters.

How does this work? Well, in essence, visualization requires you to select primary metrics (or small sets of metrics), forcing you to be selective — and if you use junk metrics, you’ll end up with a comical visualization that starkly shows how useless that view really is. Help your customers cut through the noise and they’ll appreciate it.

It can assist with telling stories

Crafting a narrative with data can be extremely useful, whether you’re pitching to a prospective supplier, trying to raise morale in your team, or attempting to steadily build an impressive brand. Put together a strong case to show that your business is moving in the right direction, and you’ll have people eating out of the palm of your hand.

Of course, data is finicky at the best of times, and it tends to be opaque and confusing at first glance. Visual storytelling is massively more powerful than its textual equivalent, and composing a creative animated infographic can drive a point home with real aplomb. Think of how charities compose social media graphics to give poverty and disease statistics the gravitas they warrant. Offer that kind of functionality to your customers, and you’ll earn plaudits.

It can help show how customer shopping channels interact

Following up on the ecommerce example, retail data doesn’t stem from isolated channels for typical storefronts. Instead, it’s fed through multiple channels — social media platforms, advertising campaigns, SEO traffic, and even offline marketing. Understanding how the numerous distinct elements are interacting is key to improving the overall strategy.

To achieve this, an ecommerce business needs a CMS capable of multi-channel commerce and intelligible visualization, such as Shopify (it happens to have a fairly comprehensive set of best practices), plus every potential traffic source or action tracked and tagged suitably. That data can then be visualized to clarify the wider context and more usefully highlight the most significant areas for improvement.

It can cater to those lacking technical skills

Imagine the first-time software user trying to make their way in a comprehensive suite with more functions and metrics than they can usefully fathom. Trying to figure out how things are going, they stumble into the reporting section and immediately hit a wall upon seeing massive tables of identical-looking data. It’s a tough learning experience.

When dealing with non-technical customers, using data visualization is a great way to ease them into more complicated functions without asking them to handle anything excessively complex. It’s also excellent for providing intuitive controls (more on that next).

It can better suit touchscreen interfaces

These days, we do so much of our online work using mobile devices that old-fashioned menu systems just don’t fit most circumstances. As noted previously, data visualization doesn’t need to be non-interactive: you can use it to devise a fresh control system using drag-and-drop and connective lines to make it clear how different elements fit together.

Imagine someone with limited technical knowledge being able to compose a strong report regardless through using an intuitive touch-based design. That’s what UX can achieve today (as seen on kiosks across the world through companies such as InTouch), and to make it a CX reality, you need only put in the effort to make it happen.

Making data accessible

In the end, this is what data visualization is about: taking complex and tricky data and making it useful and meaningful for any and all audiences. For the 6 established reasons, it can be a powerful tool for improving customer experiences, so don’t overlook it.

The post 6 Ways Data Visualization Can Help Brands Improve Customer Experience appeared first on Reflective Data.

For example, duplicate information could mean that members of a marketing team call the same person multiple times. Then, a potential lead gets frustrated, and marketing professionals waste time.

Or, duplicate data could give incorrect statistics caused by inflated numbers. If one legitimate user appears in a database several times and that’s a common occurrence, marketers could reach falsely positive conclusions about the effectiveness of a marketing campaign or the reach of a new product.

Here are five things that marketers and other people who work with data can do to stop duplicate data from becoming a pervasive problem.

1. Have Stricter Data Entry Practices

Human error is one of the primary causes of duplicate data. If people aren’t careful enough to input data without making errors, the steps marketers take to check for identical records might fail. For example, maybe there’s a valid email address in the database that’s john.smith123@mydomain.com. But, if a person also mistakenly types that email address in another instance with “.con” on the end, it would not appear as a duplicate.

Marketers should implement quality control measures for data entry. They may include having at least two people check information before submitting it to a database. Problems can also occur if too many people take responsibility for entering data. When they don’t follow all the same procedures, duplication could happen.

Data quality shortcomings arise due to several reasons, some of which relate to other tech tools. If a company uses an optical character recognition (OCR) program to speed up data importation, it’s especially important to have human oversight that boosts quality control.

2. Use Automation to Help Spot Duplicate Data

Automated tools can cut down on the manual labor used when looking for data duplicates. And, options are available for popular applications that store data, like Google Sheets. While utilizing that spreadsheet program, people can depend on a manual formula or install an add-on that looks for multiple instances of the same information.

Becoming familiar with either the manual command or how to use the add-on can help people find duplicated data faster, putting them a step closer to removing it.

Also, when choosing an automated tool designed to assist with locating duplication, people who work with data should always research the possibilities and read reviews from users before picking options for their needs.

3. Apply Human Insights to Any Data Deduplication Tool

Tools exist that make it easier for marketers to remove duplicates from their databases. But, they should not become overly reliant on those solutions. For example, if a platform shows an entry of a duplicate address, users should not automatically regard it as an error.

For example, an address for an apartment in a college town could have a different valid occupant for each semester or even less often. Alternatively, there could be cases where two people from the same household sign up for the same service but have different subscriptions because they chose different feature tiers.

When data analysts use any interfaces that assist with removing duplicate data, they must take a closer look before deleting information that seems redundant. Even the best tech suites for controlling duplication can’t view the data with the context that a human can.

4. Change Duplication Removal Methods As Needs Dictate

Excellent data deduplication needs a methodical approach. Once marketers and data analysts come up with a method for removing duplicates, they need to log every step of the process and make a note of when each one happens. Otherwise, it’ll be impossible to keep track of what works and what doesn’t. It’s also best to test a deduplication process in a sandboxed environment before moving it to production.

Then, even after a deduplication method seems ideal, companies should still be open to changing it as necessary. For example, if an enterprise links another source of customer data to a marketing tool, that action could cause unwanted duplication. Then, the presence of another new marketing tool makes it necessary to change a previously successful deduplication process.

5. Prompt People to Avoid Signing Up Twice

Some duplicate data happens because customers can’t remember registering at a website before. So, one simple data deduplication marketers and data analysts can use is to ensure that sign-up forms urge existing users to log into their accounts instead of registering again.

Start Tackling Duplicated Data

Data duplicates are common, but not impossible to reduce. The steps suggested here can help data experts get to the bottom of duplication problems and start to solve them.

The post 5 Data Deduplication Strategies for Marketers appeared first on Reflective Data.

As you’ve likely heard before, a tool is only as good as the hand that wields it. If you’re unaware of the full range of capabilities and features your platform provides, you’re falling short of its full potential. More than that, you’re prone to errors that could compromise your marketing performance.

With this in mind, what are some of the most common analytical mistakes marketing professionals make? It’s wise to understand the pitfalls of analytics platforms, so you can avoid them with ease.

1. Choosing Favorite Tools

While some tools are more effective than others, you’ll never find a one-size-fits-all solution. No algorithm applies to every situation, and no data source provides all the information you need. You might prioritize certain features of your platforms over others, but it’s crucial to experiment and explore.

Some of the features you’ve overlooked might have incredible potential, but you won’t know until you’ve examined them. When marketing professionals play favorites with tools, they waste money and increase turnaround time. You’ll avoid these common mistakes as long as you keep an open mind.

When you’re developing your marketing strategy, try both new and old things, searching for solutions that are appropriate for your set of circumstances. These circumstances will change, and you have to evolve with them by adapting your approach. Dependence on any one tool is counterintuitive.

2. Picking the Wrong Graphs

You want to communicate your results to your team through data visualization, but it isn’t such a simple task. You might confuse them if you choose the wrong type of chart or graph, leaving them with more questions than answers. You have to represent different kinds of information in different ways.

As an example, line and bar graphs are best for showing progress over a period of time. Pie graphs are ideal for displaying the number of people in your customer base who come from various geographies. When deciding on data visualization, ask yourself what you want to achieve with a chart or graph.

When you look at data visualization within the context of your marketing goals, you’ll have a better understanding of what information is important and how to show it. Start with your initial intention for the data to sidestep some of the mistakes others in your position have made in the past.

3. Starting With Metrics

While many companies use platforms for collecting, storing and analyzing data, not all of them follow a coherent plan. In truth, it isn’t enough to have access to information. Once you obtain the data, you need to approach it with a clear and agreed-upon goal that your team understands.

It’s one of the mistakes startups often make with data, failing to set strategic priorities early in the process. You integrate something new into your website — like a favoriting feature — but you haven’t defined your goal. Without that goal, you don’t know what success looks like, or whether you’ve achieved it.

Amanda Richardson, chief strategy officer for the travel company HotelTonight, poses the important question: “…what’s the key metric that’s going to determine success?” Richardson goes on to explain: “Without that clarity, you end up with a situation where one person is saying, ‘That was great for our most popular users, who favorite an average of 12 hotels’ and another is saying ‘But this was intended for new users.’ And you’re thinking, ‘Was it?'”

Improve Your Marketing Strategy

A tool is only as good as the hand that wields it, and now you know how to use yours a little better. As long as you avoid these three mistakes, you’ll make the most of the platforms you employ every day and improve your marketing strategy.

The post 3 Analytical Mistakes You’re Making and How to Avoid Them appeared first on Reflective Data.

Creating these visuals on your own can take more time than reading through the slog of information. The good news is that technology has created data visualization tools for marketers to easily pour their data into and create the visuals for them.

There are open-source data visualization software, apps for mobile devices, tools available for free and much more when you start finding the need to get your hands on one of these programs. If you’re currently shopping around, here are a few of the best ones available.

1. FusionCharts

FusionCharts is entirely JavaScript-based, with availability on mobile devices. Since it shares a customer base with Apple, Google, Facebook, Intel and other giant companies, you’ll have access to direct support from the developers and comprehensive tutorials. FusionCharts is even available through an indefinite free trial for developmental reasons.

2. Tableau

Tableau is one of the most powerful, secure and flexible analytics platforms in the industry. Available in mobile apps, desktop programs, servers and everything in between, Tableau has been in this game long enough to know what marketers need. They use proprietary programs to identify all the problems marketers face firsthand. Tableau’s server option starts at $12 a month, but the desktop program is available for $70 a month. They also offer a 14-day free trial.

3. Sisense

Sisense is an outstanding analytics platform for big businesses. Working with NBC, General Electric, Rolls-Royce and many more, they offer powerful reporting and fast dashboards. The interface is easy to learn and use while remaining flexible. However, the price is a little costly. You can only get a real price through a quote based on your specific needs, but one can expect $160 a month at most.

4. IBM Cognos Analytics

IBM is known worldwide for being a technological innovator. Their analytics program is entirely self-service, allowing you the freedom to complete any task at your pace. Uniquely, Cognos Analytics uses artificial intelligence to make everything even smoother. Pricing starts at $70 a month.

5. Grow BI Dashboard

Grow Business Intelligence Dashboard is all about self-serving analytics and reports for their customers without being expensive. Recommended with five stars from GetApp, Capterra and other review sites, Grow can help centralize data in real time. What’s more, as of right now, Grow is free. You can either opt to get the demo version or jump straight into the indefinite free trial.

6. Nexla

Nexla puts a focus on API integration, database connections and FTP servers. They allow data sharing rather than focusing solely on the organizational aspect, yet remain secure the entire time. Nexla is flexible, but easy to use, making it an excellent all-around visualization tool. The free trial lasts for 15 days, after which users can request a customized price quote.

7. Corporator

Corporator differs from the others on this list because of how straightforward it is. The interface is flexible enough without making anything complicated. Corporator focuses on strategic management and key performance indicators to get their mission across. They offer a free trial upon request, as well as quotes based on your business.

Benefits of Visual Tools

Some of the benefits for using visualization tools in business for data may be obvious, but if you’re on the fence about whether or not you need one, here are some things to think about. For instance, 84 percent of businesses find data integral to their core operations, while 95 percent of United States organizations use data for decision-making. Without visualization tools, most of the data will be too comprehensive to be useful.

Even if you are using data without visual aids, you may find they’ll work wonders in propelling your business forward. One customer mapping image could be the foundation of a sales plan, communications improvements, managing referrals in call centers, or any number of things you can imagine.

If you can create a dream with data, you can follow through with visualization tools.

The Future of Visualization

While some may find typical pie charts obvious, other businesses may not know they need such tools until it’s too late in the game. Regardless, the advancement of visual tools doesn’t stop here.

As technology advances, so do businesses. Even touchscreens have completely changed the game on data visualization. Whatever’s coming next, whether it’s an advancement related to instant 5G or the rise of personalized advertising, we’ll know soon enough.

The post 7 Best Data Visualization Tools in 2019 appeared first on Reflective Data.

But what many businesses don’t realize is that the most valuable data they collect comes from one of their biggest assets – their customers.

While the data about customer decisions and behavior is important, it’s also crucial that you make sure your data is as accurate as it can be. If you are ready to ensure that you can gather customer data that is accurate, then use the tips and information here.

1. Use Software and Tools to Make Things Easier

If you want to help ensure your customers provide you with information that is accurate, then you need to ensure it’s easy for them to give it to you. Self-filling forms and automation are a great way to do this, as no one wants to spend very long filling out a form. The easier you make it for customers to leave their information, the higher level of accuracy and the more current information you will receive.

2. Make Sure Your Data Remains Secure

Regardless of the type of data that your company uses or holds, you need to make sure that it stays safe. Reports of data hacks, data and data breaches are more common than ever before. These put the information your customer’s have provided at risk, along with other data you have. In the long run, not having proper security in place can cost your business a lot, in terms of profit and customer trust.

3. Reward Customers who Provide Verifiable or Accurate Data

In most cases, people are going to want to keep their information private. This may make it challenging for you to get accurate information from these individuals. As a result, you need to offer some type of incentive or reward for them to provide you with this. It could be anything really, from a helpful service, a free e-book, free product, discount, or anything else that may appeal to your customer base.

While this is a good idea, you also need to remain honest about why you are collecting data. Don’t try to “sneak” around to get information out of people.

4. Use the Power of Social Media

There are billions of people using social media today (2.46 billion to be exact). Chances are you use it each day and don’t give it a second thought. However, if you as a business aren’t using the power of social media, then now is the time to begin doing so.

With so many people active on social media each day, you can gather quite a bit of customer information, including online behaviors, age groups, interests, cities, genders and more. In fact, social media may be the best tool out there to gather accurate information about your customers.

5. Keep All Your Customer Data Organized

When you are gathering customer data and information, one of the most important things you need to do is to make sure that you keep this information organized. If you don’t do this, then it can be easy to overlook someone or include inaccurate information. It’s important that you be able to segment your customer base, as this will help you to further organize all the information you have collected.

Additionally, when you keep things organized, it means that you are creating a template for the way that data entry should be handled. This will help you to reduce duplicate and incorrect information.

With data being a valuable asset, you need to make sure you use the tips and information here to keep yours organized and properly manage it. In the long run, these efforts will pay off and help your company be more successful.

The post 5 Tips To Acquire Accurate Customer Data For Your Business appeared first on Reflective Data.

But despite the conveniences it offers, online shopping does have shortcomings. For example, people can’t smell a bottle of lotion and dab some on the top of their hand to see how well it absorbs into the skin. They also can’t touch the fabric of clothing or a sheet set to determine how durable it feels.

The face-to-face interactions between shoppers and shop employees are usually gone with online transactions too. Although some websites have live chat features, people can’t readily get the advice of a salesperson by asking them if they’ve personally used a piece of merchandise. They can’t find out if there’s more of a sold-out item in the back that hasn’t been put onto shelves yet.

One way brick-and-mortar businesses are competing against online shops is through a technique widely used in apps and on websites: geofencing.

What Is Geofencing, and How Does It Work?

Geofencing is the practice of using GPS or RFID technologies to define a virtual boundary around a business. Then, when people in an area move into that defined zone, they receive targeted marketing that encourages them to come into the establishment immediately. A store might use geofencing to target people currently within 25 miles of a given business and send text messages to those individuals so that they might come later.

Here are some ways brick-and-mortar businesses can benefit from geofencing.

1. Geofencing for Brick-and-Mortar Businesses Can Come After Online Efforts

Sometimes, brands with both brick-and-mortar stores and online presences launch geofencing campaigns for their physical locations after online-based attempts have favorable outcomes. In one example, Norton, the brand known for security-based computer software, partnered with RetailMeNot, the app and website that helps people find deals.

The two brands collectively took on a brick-and-mortar project after teaming up for years to boost Norton’s online sales through the RetailMeNot app. The goal was to promote a Norton product by sending RetailMeNot users a substantial discount available to redeem at a physical office supply chain. In the end, over 10,000 people engaged with the offer.

2. It Brings Online Shoppers Into Physical Stores

Retailers with both physical and online locations also work hard to urge online shoppers to come into physical stores. Sometimes that happens with a hybrid option commonly known as click and collect. People pick out their items online, then go into the store and pick them up.

With geofencing, people might see messages while shopping online that inform them that the items they want to buy are not in stock online but are available in a nearby store. If those individuals are registered users on the site, their addresses are likely on file, and that data indicates a person’s location.

Alternatively, most smartphones have location-based services that allow brands to determine where shoppers are while they’re browsing online. People who buy things through the internet generally appreciate efficiency, so instead of potentially going to another online store and waiting for that merchant to send their items, they could go to the original retailer’s brick-and-mortar store.

Home Depot has an app that senses when people walk into one of its physical stores, then gives them extra content to simplify the shopping experience. For example, they can rely on their phones to scan barcodes on merchandise or use the Product Locator, which has a mapping function to help people know exactly where to go in a specific store to find the stuff they need.

About 45 percent of Home Depot purchases people make online get picked up in local stores. The content that arrives through the app once individuals get within the required distance from the store could spur them to do more inside than merely go to retrieve the items they bought.

3. Geofencing Could Increase Customer Loyalty

Most people can relate to feeling pangs of hunger and knowing it’s time to eat but having trouble deciding precisely where to go. Elephant Bar — a restaurant chain serving American and international fare — successfully enticed members of its loyalty program by sending them text messages as they neared the food establishment’s locations.

The messages were also personalized based on the number of loyalty points a person accumulated. The campaign’s results showed that 30 percent of people who received those correspondences from the chain came into a restaurant on the same day. Such a program gives people opportunities to use their loyalty points or earn more, thereby reminding them of how much their membership pays off.

4. It Gives Opportunities for Data Collection

Habits are part of our lives, and people often don’t even realize when they engage in them. For example, a person might get a cup of coffee at a local cafe and hardly think about participating in that action unless they don’t do it one day and feel the effects of reduced caffeine consumption. If the retailer hones in on that person through geofencing, it’s possible for the retailer to predict habits and influence actions.

What if that consumer got text messages when passing the coffee shop both before and after work but only acted on those text messages after work 10 percent of the time? Then, the content could become increasingly personalized and say things like “Start your morning off with a smile, and get a free pastry with your coffee today.”

Data collection happens in ways other than geofencing too, but the immediacy geofencing offers means brick-and-mortar stores can capitalize on a person’s proximity and potentially gather details at the same time. A geofencing text could tempt a person with a discount in exchange for filling out a survey about overall satisfaction with a brand, perhaps. Then, companies can gain insights, and participants can save money.

What’s Trending?

Like most other marketing methods with staying power, geofencing has substantially evolved over the past few years and is used in increasingly creative ways. One app called TempWorks Buzz lets temporary workers punch in and out of job sites through the app, which features geofencing and facial recognition components.

It’s not hard to imagine a future where that technology gets applied to brick-and-mortar retailers and shows how many people with kids, for instance, enter stores between certain hours, allowing retailers to distribute tailored promotions to shoppers.

Also, a company called Simpli.fi offers what it calls “addressable geofencing.” Its technology allows creating an individual geofence around every property in a neighborhood, then laying the foundation for marketing content that’s extremely personalized based on factors such as past purchases or census data, including the amount a household earns annually.

Simpli.fi asserts that its technology could potentially make all targeted marketing efforts more effective, including direct mail outreach. Potential use cases offered by the company include a car dealership targeting households with cars due for lease renewals and a local dentist office focusing on current patients to let them know about a teeth-whitening promotion.

Geofencing Helps Brick-and-Mortar Businesses Cater to Needs

Regardless of a physical company’s type or size, it’s essential for establishments to understand what customers need and position themselves as able to help. Geofencing, therefore, is crucial for addressing customers at times when they’re closest to locations and compelling them to stop in to make purchases.

The post How Geofencing Works for Brick-and-Mortar Businesses appeared first on Reflective Data.