Befriend your data in these 10 practical ways
by Gyöngyvér Szabó I plantconfident.com
My husband prefers to approach conflict resolution by drawing experience from data.
He'd start his argument by saying, "in 75% of the cases, you do this or that". He pulls that from the pool we call the Sea Of A Marriage. I'm seasoned enough to ask to see his database entries on the matter - but only after I inquired about the other 25% for sure. He doesn't have one because we both know that behavioural data is not meant to settle marital conflicts.
In business, on the other hand, data can provide a myriad of opportunities for all, no matter how big or small. Moreover, I can see small organisations are more suited to use big data because they're more agile. They can act on data-driven insights right from the get-go.
Let's talk about how small businesses can befriend their data in 10 ways:
In-house data sources like sales or subscription data tell you exactly what, when and how people prefer to buy from you.
Excel or Google sheets integrations help you get all the financial data from different tools in one place.
Keep your hand on Facebook and Twitter: trending topics show what people are interested in.
Google Trends gives you insights into the popularity of your competitors and their products.
Use audience building tools on social media to identify niche markets you can reach with your offering.
Track how much you spend on marketing and advertising versus how much profit you receive from your customers.
Measure online customer behaviour (through website analytics) and compare it with external data (i.e. the time of year, economic and weather conditions).
Data analytics in inventory management is key to keeping operations efficient and avoiding unclear inventory records, over/under ordering, and other mistakes.
Make customer feedback data work for you through analysing the texts; learn how people think, behave, and drive their decisions when they interact with you.
Public data sets, such as census data, help you predict movements of markets you're active in.
Data analytics in small businesses should start by simply using all the big data that they're already surrounded by and that other companies give us access to. As a step further, data can become a part of your business model, leading to exciting new ways to generate revenue.
*
snippets. short essays about the ins and outs of creating and delivering value digitally.