Numbers don’t lie. In fact, numbers have been the guiding light of human behavior for time immemorial. Whether it be for something as simplistic as the time of day to something as complex as high level data analysis, we use numbers to affect our decisions. The same goes for marketing one’s business. You should always act on the data. It is impartial. It is without a bias. It is only a fact. In and of itself, data can easily be misconstrued, manipulated and misused, but when the correct metrics and parameters are set to capture a set of data, it is the ideal indicator for guiding business decisions. Using data as it pertains to boosting your business is not an easy feat, but there certainly are ways of doing it that are beyond the novice’s understanding from which you will greatly benefit.
Correctly gathering statistics then making well informed decisions will always work in your favor. Even Kevin Durant won an NBA MVP by hiring a statistician to help him gauge what location of the court his shot percentage was highest, then working to improve the spots on the court from where he was not as accurate. This thought process can translate to your business as well. Pointr Labs, for instance, has recruited similar techniques for the businesses using their services. They use indoor maps to guide users through event venues and/or stores, effectively tracking where they spend the most time by showing hot spots on the map for the venue owner. This can translate into smart business decisions, guiding the choices of store owners with regards to product placement and store layouts, among other things.
Analyzing marketing data can be a convoluted process, filled with esoteric language, and can get flat-out boring. Despite that, it is in the best interest of you and/or your client to be able to effectively break down all the variables that go into your marketing campaigns, saving you time in the long run. One example would be multiple regression. The idea of multiple regression is to take two variables, one independent and one dependent, and weigh out how the former is impacted by the latter. In marketing, you take the changes in the dependent variable (for instance, bicycle sales) and see how it measures up with the independent variable (insert demographic characteristic). Marketers who are keen on data analysis that can find positive correlations between the dependent and independent variables based on a location’s demographic are at an advantage here. They can know from the get-go what to expect when employing marketing plans to suit the community in which the client is located, and whether starting a business in a particular location is worth the effort in the first place.
In the internet world, a popular metric to use for a web page’s success is bounce rates. In simplistic terms, bounce rates measure the amount of people leaving your webpage after only seeing the homepage, meaning they have not explored your website, and obviously did not make any purchases as you might desire. If you see that you have a high bounce rate on your site, adjustments have to be made either in how you attract to your site in the first place or in creating a more appealing front page that makes users want to interact further than the surface.
Overall, data is the driving force behind most marketing decisions going on today. It is not just a matter of what the number itself says, but what you decide to do with it. When the parameters for gathering data are appropriately in line with the essentials of your business plan, you can make unbiased, well-informed decisions to optimize every dollar spent on your marketing efforts. By using effective methods like multiple regressions and measuring bounce rates, you can gain an objective insight and be sure the next move you make is better than the one before it.