5 Key Drivers for SMBs to Utilize Big Data

When we talk about big data, naturally the emphasis is always on big, big companies, big brands and big money. Despite this, big data and big data analytics has its place within small and medium sized businesses (SMBs).

Arguably, big data and the analytics tools used to glean insight are more crucial to SMBs as they provide a competitive advantage which is a necessity if you’re going to survive in this tough economic climate. Below are the top 5 ways SMBs can use big data analytics to drive business growth.

1.)  Product development

One of the most important uses of analytics revolves around product development. It gives you the ability to determine which products are selling and which aren’t, helping refine your product strategy and providing evidence to support your future plans. By looking at returns and complaints data you can easily identify issues with specific products making your business more profitable.

2.)  Marketing performance

Marketing performance is another area where analytics is key.  Marketing requires investment; therefore, it is crucial that it drives revenue and profit, a negative ROI is a waste of resources. The strength in analytics is that it can easily show which campaigns are driving sales and profit, making your marketing more agile and effective. Via a CRM it also helps you deliver targeted and relevant communications helping drive ROI.

3.)  Customer satisfaction

The most important aspect for any business is making their customers happy. Whether you’re Microsoft or a local plumber, you must satisfy the needs and wants of your customers. The great thing about analytics is the ability to analyse KPIs such as customer retention rate, product returns rate and the scores they give on review sites. By looking at these metrics and slightly tweaking processes, you can easily see an impact on customer satisfaction but also your sales and profits.

4.)  Customer behaviour

Customer behaviour and customer satisfaction come hand in hand – knowing how and when your customers buy allows you to make informed decisions to keep your customers happy. Through analytics, you can identify buying cycles and seasonal trends which are incredibly important for budget, campaign and stock planning. For traditional brick and mortar stores, business can look at geographical data helping identify new opportunities.

5.)  Website performance

In this day and age, your website is one of the most important parts of your business and for many, it is the storefront or brochure for their business. Being able to identify issues with your website is incredibly important since a poor website reflects poorly on the organisation. Analytics can be used to identify security and site speed issues as well as downtime helping businesses deliver a consistently great experience to their customers.

How are you using analytics to grow your business? Let us know in the comments.