{"id":3357839,"date":"2023-03-28T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketinginsidergroup.com\/?p=3357839"},"modified":"2023-03-27T10:38:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T14:38:36","slug":"how-to-grow-your-small-business-with-data-4-practical-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketinginsidergroup.com\/content-marketing\/how-to-grow-your-small-business-with-data-4-practical-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Grow Your Small Business with Data: 4 Practical Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"
It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a new company looking for a strong start or a town staple looking to break bad habits, you can always improve and grow your small business<\/a>. For some, that might mean entering new markets. For others, it may mean creating deeper engagements with existing customers.<\/p>\n Throughout this guide, we\u2019ll look at four effective ways to use data to improve your small business practices to increase new and existing customer engagement and satisfaction. You\u2019ll take both practical behind-the-scenes and public-facing steps to:<\/p>\n Before you initiate any changes, however, we suggest that you define your exact needs and goals\u2014both short and long term\u2014and how you will measure your success in addressing them. Make sure to put this down on paper! Your answers will determine the extent to which you\u2019ll want to focus on each suggestion.<\/p>\n Ultimately, making these changes to your small business practices will help improve your bottom line. Let\u2019s dive in!<\/p>\n For your business to make any progress, you must be organized across multiple levels of your operations. While you will likely always face setbacks and hiccups, systemic organization will make the difference between success and failure. Focus your organization efforts around two primary places: your customer database and your inventory management system.<\/p>\n Data hygiene has nothing to do with scrubbing your data\u2019s ears. Rather, it is the ongoing process involved in maintaining clean data<\/a> that is complete and error-free. all of the ongoing processes involved in guaranteeing data is clean \u2026 and error-free.\u201d<\/p>\n You rely on your customer database to make important decisions, personalize customer communications, and generate leads. Databases that contain many errors (whether inaccurate, duplicated, incomplete, or outdated data) can induce huge losses for your business. Take the following steps to clean your business\u2019 data:<\/p>\n If you want to organize your business\u2019s consumer data, but feel uncomfortable diving into the deep waters of data hygiene, consider hiring experts to lead the way. Professional consultants have the necessary training and experience in creating data hygiene procedures, cleaning, organizing, and analyzing data into valuable reports, as well as developing and implementing a data marketing strategy.<\/p>\n For small businesses that sell a wide range of products, inventory management<\/a> can be a time-consuming headache. Luckily, there are modern, tech-driven solutions. Inventory management software, for example, can help save you time and avoid the errors of a manual, pen and paper inventory system.<\/p>\n But you\u2019ll need to be careful in which software you choose. An awkward, one-size-fits-all system will lead to inaccurate item counts and stocking errors that can bring down your business.\u00a0 When deciding on the best inventory management software for your business, consider testimonials from similar businesses, industry-specific benefits, and the provider\u2019s industry expertise.<\/p>\n For example, a grocery store would want to use inventory management tools (including multi-store management, barcode scanner\/printer integration, and automatic reordering) that were made with supermarkets in mind.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the tools you choose should make your life easier and more organized\u2014not more difficult and chaotic.<\/p>\n Since customer retention can boost a business\u2019 profitability, customer retention makes a huge difference for a business\u2019s success. However, if you\u2019re targeting the wrong customers, you\u2019re likely to have high customer churn and a correspondingly low retention rate. You\u2019re not necessarily treating them poorly\u2014you\u2019re probably offering great service\u2014but they\u2019re simply not the right fit for your business.<\/p>\n Instead of trying to guess who your customers are, use a combination of your in-house and third-party data to develop informed customer personas<\/a> for your business\u2019s ideal customer profiles\u2014the ones that are most likely to become long-term patrons. Follow these three steps to build your personas:<\/p>\n Using the resulting personas will yield more targeted sales, reduced marketing costs, thoughtful product decisions, and improved alignment across your organization.<\/p>\n You can use your customer profiles in your outreach and marketing efforts. Because you likely have several different high-priority customer personas, you\u2019ll want to address the individual needs and priorities of each specific group. Moreover, different customers will be receptive to different modes and marketing tactics. Appending data<\/a> can help you identify how to best approach your audience. To convert most customers, you should plan to facilitate multiple interactions with your business across a variety of channels, such as:<\/p>\n As your business and target markets grow and change, you\u2019ll need to adjust your marketing and sales plans accordingly. Especially in today\u2019s rapidly changing digital environment, trends quickly come and go and social platforms appear and disappear. Rather than seeing these changes as setbacks, view them as opportunities to try new approaches and grow in different, unexpected directions.<\/p>\n Customers want to feel valued by your business. Offering loyalty programs rewards regular, high-value customer spending. Your incentives will depend on your target audience. But they will likely include a combination of the following:<\/p>\n Take a page from Tip #3 and make these customer incentives available across channels\u2014both in-person and online.<\/p>\n And remember, incentives aren\u2019t just for customers. To acquire and retain the best staff, Double the Donation recommends<\/a> using incentives to better engage your employees. You can:<\/p>\n While it\u2019s tempting to jump into the incentive game, the best incentives are developed in conjunction with recipients. Survey your employees and your customers to understand exactly how they\u2019d like to be appreciated.<\/p>\n Stopping here, however, is doing a disservice to your business\u2019 success, and putting its future existence in peril. In order to avoid an untimely end and make the best-informed decisions for your business, you\u2019ll need to continue to track, update, and analyze your data<\/a>.<\/p>\n In fact, the most successful businesses are those that prioritize data across their entire operations: from inventory to sales to customer and employee retention. For example, according to AccuData\u2019s guide to data marketing<\/a>, businesses with data-driven campaigns see an average of five times return on investment. Instead of relying on one source of information, use a variety of tools, including a POS system and data enhancement services, to collect and leverage the perfect combination of in-house and third-party data in your business\u2019 growth.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Author: Gabrielle Perham, MBA, Director of Marketing<\/p>\n Gabrielle is the Director of Marketing & Sales Operations for Deep Sync and its family of brands: Compact Information Systems, HomeData, AccuData Integrated Marketing, AlumniFinder, ASL Marketing, CollegeBound Selection Service, and DeepSync Labs. She joined the organization in 2017 and possesses more than 15 years of experience in strategic marketing, branding, communications, and digital marketing. She earned a B.S. in Marketing and an M.B.A in Marketing Management from the University of Tampa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
1. Get organized.<\/h2>\n
Customer Database<\/h3>\n
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Inventory Management System<\/h3>\n
2. Pinpoint your ideal customers.<\/h2>\n
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3. Work across channels.<\/h2>\n
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4. Offer incentives.<\/h2>\n
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