Consumer data analytics is the process of an organization continually examining its customer and prospect data to make more informed decisions related to how to acquire leads and retain high-value customers. This can provide businesses with powerful predictive insight into what prospects or customers are looking for in a product or service and determine how they want to be marketed to.
Businesses can use consumer data to:
- Better identify and address consumer pain points
- Gain competitive advantage by better understanding prospects
- Drive revenue by retaining existing customers and prioritizing high-quality leads
The Power of Understanding Your Consumers
Consumers have more authority when it comes to shopping for products and services than ever before, and the approach a business takes can make the difference between acquiring a customer or losing one to a competitor. Consumers once relied primarily on what a company told them about their service or product. Now, consumers do the research themselves by searching company websites and comparing online reviews.
Collecting and analyzing consumer data takes much of the guesswork out of determining what prospects are looking for. Those insights help companies discover the content and information customers value and make them want to interact with your brand or company.
Understanding consumer behavior plays a large role in knowing your target audience(s), which in turn can lead to more focused and efficient marketing tactics, and ideally, more customers.
Marketing teams can use consumer insights to better develop relevant and timely communications that increase engagement with prospects and customers in every channel. Having this information about your target audiences can bolster your company’s ability to gain new customers and help build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.
3 Ways Using Consumer Data Analytics Strengthens Marketing Efforts:
1. Increase Customer Acquisition Rates
Having more information about your target audience allows you to better determine what those consumers are likely to be interested in and the types of marketing offers they will respond to the best. For example, people who travel for business might prefer receiving information on hotels with reliable Wi-Fi and co-working spaces, while pleasure travelers might prefer hearing about attractions in popular vacation spots.
Consumers expect personalization throughout their journey. Build marketing strategies around how you use the information gathered from consumer analytics to better tailor messaging efforts in a way that resonates with your target audiences.
Prospects in the awareness stage are likely to have questions about companies and their services. Predict or identify common questions shared by potential customers and create content surrounding that. Examples include adding informative copy to popular sections of your website with the necessary information or designing content offers, such as blog posts, around topics that consumers are most likely interested in.
Consumer data can be used to increase the likelihood of attracting leads across effective tactics including paid search, online advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO).
2. Bolster Retention Efforts
Consumer insights also play a vital role in keeping existing customers engaged with your brand. Knowing what customers value and are interested in also means you know how to keep them happy and provide the service or informational authority that keeps them coming back at every stage in the customer lifecycle.
Increasing customer retention rates will save your organization money and help to generate additional revenue. It can cost as much as five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer. You also have a better chance of selling additional products to an existing customer: current customers are 40 to 65 percent more likely to make a purchase compared to a new prospect. Returning buyers are also 50 percent more likely to try new products and spend 31 percent more money than new customers.
One key strategy for strengthening your retention efforts is to facilitate a human and nurturing relationship along every stage of a buyer’s journey. For example, understanding when customers are planning to move lets you create offers for products and services that are often purchased at the same time, like furniture or appliances, or upgrades to home security and Internet services. This tactic builds brand loyalty and helps encourage happy customers to organically post on social media about their experience with your business.
Better customer intelligence can be used to build effective marketing strategies that strengthen customer retention rates across email campaigns, social media marketing, relevant content creation, and referrals.
3. Strengthen Lookalike Targeting
Consumer data analytics plays another essential role in any company’s marketing strategy – knowing who your best customers are in order to find high-value prospects that look like them. Once your business has won customers, your marketing and sales teams should identify and characterize your most engaged or profitable customers. Pinpoint similar attributes shared by key prospects and use that information to determine how to attract more of the same people.
Knowing that your best customers are new parents, avid exercisers, and frequent restaurant diners lets you predict the types of messages and content they will respond to best, as well as the best channels to engage them through. You will save money on customer acquisition campaigns and improve ROI by using a narrow targeting approach that focuses on likely successful leads instead of wasting resources by casting too wide a net.
Your organization’s staff can also use this knowledge about your target and existing consumers to diagnose the reasons for customer churn, and to identify the marketing strategies and channels working the best to promote consumer engagement and sales. For example, a location intelligence company can provide businesses insight into the behavioral trends of consumers. Foot traffic data provides information about the consumers visiting a business venue or competitor store. Location data also can identify where people will likely visit after leaving a place or event and determine what sorts of purchases they are likely to make while in the area.
