Hi all, I’m Naomi Burgess and in this post, I’ll talk a bit about digital marketing and data analysis and how you, as a businessman, can make it work for you.
Ask yourself
If you work in e-commerce, you should be familiar with digital marketing and data analysis, and chances are, you engage with most of your clients via the Internet on a regular and continuous basis. Is there really any question as to whether you should invest in digital marketing and data analysis in today’s business landscape? You absolutely should.
Invest in Data Analysis
So how can you make digital marketing work and data analysis for you? Whether you operate on a B2B or a B2C basis, there are several strategies you can employ to do so. For starters, you can launch a model that would allow you to understand your customers’ expectations better. You’re probably already having some sort of dialogues with them, but it’s very important to prioritise understanding their needs and in order to do that, you need to put resources into gathering and analysing their data as thoroughly as possible. Getting to know your customers and tailoring your offers to them would be an excellent way of building a long-term relationship.
Keep your Customer’s contact before and after
Secondly, you should not only gather and analyse your customers’ personal data, but also information about their previous purchases and interests in order to analyse their preferences and learn from the feedback they’ve given you on their previous experiences. Today’s technology allows you to do that within the tightest timeframes and therefore respond promptly to any changes in your customers’ needs.
Identify the need of your customers
Thirdly, the changes in customers’ needs I just mentioned need to be carefully monitored and analysed as well. In certain industries, such as technology and e-commerce, it’s very important to keep up and if you’re not delivering and exceeding customers’ rapidly changing expectations, you could easily risk losing business. Your target audience is very adaptable, flexible and interested, and you need to be too. Luckily, technology can help you, and investing in it would bring more revenue in the long run. This would only be possible, however, if you take advantage of this technology and use it properly – it can’t do much by itself, and a personalised and relevant interaction is always better.
Do effective Internet Marketing
This kind of technology would allow you to reach customers across several channels, including social media, e-mails and website analytics. However, as I said earlier, it only gets you so far. It would gather data for you and analyse it for you, but it’s completely up to you what to do with that data and how to use it for your customer experience. While your customers might appreciate the wonders of technology themselves, and their expectations about response and communication, as well as other things, have shifted considerably in the last few years, most of them would still prefer an e-mail or a social media post tailored exclusively towards them and their needs to a faceless link to a new product that’s sent out to everyone on the mailing list. Technology can’t do all the work – the business’ main assets is its people, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
Secure your customer’s information
Finally, while data-analysing technology can help you find a common ground and engage with your customers, it can also be a cause for concern for them. Although your target audience knows the value of personal data for business, it is also most likely aware of the risks that come with handing it over. Make sure that you let your customers know that you’d store their data in the most secure way possible (and of course, actually implement the measures that ensure that!). Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself with that guarantee – data privacy is a topical issue in this day and age, and the more confident your clients are that you’ll treat their personal information properly the more likely they are to approach you again and recommend you, which would increase your goodwill.
I’ve just about managed to cover the basic ways you can take advantage of digital marketing and data analysis technology and use it to enhance your customer experience, strengthen your client relationships and bring in more revenue. Hopefully, you’ve found these strategic ideas to be useful! I’ve also done my best to emphasise that despite all the technology available on the market to help you with your client communication strategies, no technology is likely to ever be able to replace personalised approach and people skills.
