Did you know that data from your online store can help it grow? There are three super-simple ways that you can start using your e-commerce data to quickly expand your online business this year.
You’ve probably heard of ‘big data,’ but small data is what holds the secrets to your success. As your online business gets off the ground, the data that you collect from your customers will be invaluable. It will help you correctly define, segment, and refine your marketing strategies.
Insights like who is buying what and when, will make it easy for you to run a store that people love to use. According to Forrester Research, only 12% of companies are analyzing their small data. You can use yours to gain actionable insight into how to sell more and sooner to your customer base.
Here are three exciting and extremely easy ways that your online store can leverage the power of e-commerce data. Discover more about your customers and scale at a lightning-fast pace!
Become a Data-Driven Small Business
Does your business plan involve using data to sell more? Many small business owners would say no. After all, data is an intimidating subject—so we’ll make it simple for you.
There is big data and small data—both are useful and relevant to your online company. Big data offers you generalized insights about your niche and customers. Small data offers you accurate insights about customers who have engaged on your business website.
Both kinds are useful when building your online store and when creating effective marketing campaigns. The use of customer data is not as complex as you think. It’s not just for large, Fortune 500 companies with enormous teams of data scientists—it has real-world applications for any size business.
According to McKinsey, data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, six times more likely to keep them, and 19 times more likely to create bigger profits. Data is the most direct route to understanding your customer experience with greater clarity.
Analyzing data should be a fundamental part of your business model. The most high-value data comes from your e-commerce platform. You’ll find all the information you need to shape high-impact marketing plans that will quickly scale your brand.
Create High-Impact Marketing Campaigns
One of the most amazing things about data is that it gives you the ability to personalize your marketing strategies. Personalization is the key to real engagement with your customer, which, in turn, improves repeat sales. Data is a concrete way to bridge the gap between marketing and sales.
Some 91% of customers say that they are more likely to shop at stores that provide them with relevant and personalized recommendations. Forbes reports that data-driven marketing makes companies more profitable—six times more profitable than competitors, year over year.
A high impact campaign includes:
- Targeted messaging to the right customers
- Appealing discounts and offers at the best times
- Knowing where your highest-value customers are and how to reach them
- Past information that is likely to influence present and future buying habits
- An exciting, personalized customer experience for each consumer
If your online shop wants to expand fast, all you need to do is familiarize yourself with these three marketing tips. Using this data to inform your strategy will help it succeed.
3 Easy Ways to Leverage Small E-Commerce Data
How do you collect, analyze, and convert data into something that improves online sales? Your e-commerce business is quietly collecting this data for you as people shop in your online store.
Every interaction they have is being recorded—every click, every page visited, and every product purchased. This information is collected for you on your analytics dashboard. A cloud-based e-commerce platform will give you access to analytics that you can explore for marketing insight.
As you look at your data, you can apply human reasoning and deduction to the results. There is so much to be learned from your customer data. Here’s what to look for in order to build your marketing strategy.
#1: Understand Your Market Demographics
There are many different kinds of data that can improve your market demographics. You need to get to know your various groups of customers intimately so that you can target them better.
Your online business needs to define your target market, segment your audience, and create complete buyer personas for your marketing initiatives. This data will help!
Age, location, language, interests, stage of life, spending patterns, occupation, household income, education level and marital status
All of this ‘big data’ can initially be sourced from a number of third-party areas. Look into your social media analytics on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. You can also invest in paid data from companies like Experian or TowerData if you don’t have any social data yet.
If you want to source small data from your own website, conduct a customer survey for existing customers. To give it an extra boost, extend it to potential customers and offer them a discount for taking the survey. A brief Facebook paid ad campaign is a great tool to source survey respondents.
#2: Understand Customer Buying Behavior
Get to know your customers better by understanding their online shopping habits. Customer behavior can be collected and analyzed from your website data. Purchase history is especially useful because it helps you identify and group customers by value.
To get started, all you need is a list of customers and how much they have bought from you over the past 12 months. Create a list hierarchy, from most valuable to least valuable. The highest-value customers will buy from you often and spend the most.
Once you have a list of the highest-value customers that shop at your online store, you can focus on targeting them for even more sales.
- Use predictive analytics to recommend products on-site based on purchase history
- Understand the market demographics of your highest-value customers
- Know which products sell the most among your highest-value consumers
- Create unique promotions designed to upsell and cross-sell to these customers
- Build a loyalty program that encourages retention and repeat sales
Use your customer-behavior data to tap into who is most likely to buy again and design marketing strategies to make it happen.
#3: Improve Customer Service and Satisfaction
It’s a challenge for small businesses to find and convert new customers. But once they’ve made their first successful purchase, they’re likely to do it again. It’s 60-70% more likely that you will sell to an existing customer than someone new.
Repeat sales can be boiled down to the quality of customer service and how satisfied they are with the experience they had with your store. If you can use data to improve customer service, you will improve your sales!
- Consider customer support response times
- Look at website conversion rates, bounce rates, and cart abandonment rates
- Survey customers and find out if they are satisfied with your products and services
- Analyze social media comments and general social sentiment
- Request feedback from customers who buy certain products
- Investigate negative experiences and discover what went wrong
There are many ways you can build this data into your customer relationship management strategy. You could simplify your checkout cart or add more ways for customers to reach you for support. You can also launch an initiative to collect customer reviews to act as social proof.
According to the 2021 State of Online Reviews study done by SiteJabber, displaying real customer reviews on your website gives you a 270% greater likelihood of purchase and 91% of consumers think reviews are important enough to sway their purchasing decision when considering a new business.
All of your highest-value data can be accessed through your cloud-based e-commerce platform. Make sure to spend time analyzing your insights in order to create successful marketing campaigns.
