With the recent growth of eCommerce, understanding your target market audience has never been more crucial. Still, how do you comprehend consumer preferences across the globe? More importantly, how can you leverage that information to increase sales?
The answer is simple. You use software that helps you analyze data. A business intelligence tool, for example, will grant insight into customer preferences, ongoing product trends, and market demands. This will streamline production and significantly increase revenue margins.
The focus, then, shifts to the actual usage of such tools. How can you incorporate the gathered data into your marketing campaigns or quarterly financial goals?
However, it’s vital to have a general idea of these analytical tools and how they perform before diving into them. Read on to know more.
What Exactly Are Data Analytics Tools?
Often you hear buzzwords such as ’embedded analytics tools’ or ‘Business intelligence.’ With how fast everything moves, it becomes challenging to grasp what they actually mean.
Essentially, Business intelligence (BI) refers to an independent set of systems and processes. These can range from software processes and technologies that gather data from various sources. That gathered information is then prepared for analysis.
On the other hand, embedded analytics tools are a collection of integrated processes with a range of capabilities. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is an example of such a tool. These applications are meant to provide context and streamline workflow.
To put it simply, embedded analytics refers to the integration of BI data to provide visual avenues to use the gathered information. Consider the example below.
You have numerous automated reports on the most requested features in a product that you’re selling. That’s the BI data. Now, you need to incorporate that data into your production plans visually. You achieve that with embedded analytics.
In this context, however, a business intelligence tool essentially refers to embedded analytics software. Now that you have an overview of the concepts, you need to understand how to use them to increase sales.
How Can Data Analytics Increase Your eCommerce Sales?
While considering embedded analytics tools for your business, it’s essential to check off a few things. Once you do that, you can begin to scale your eCommerce business through analyzed data. These are just some ways you can use data analytics to boost sales.
1. Streamline and Prioritize Your Most Profitable Revenue Channels
Guesswork is only ever worthwhile when dealing with a small consumer base. When targeting a more extensive clientele, you need to rely on a business intelligence tool.
With the help of comprehensive data analysis, you can pinpoint the following things in the context of your eCommerce business:
· The number of daily views on your website
· Conversion rates or the lack thereof
· Performance of multi-platform advertisements
· Engagement rate with social media campaigns
By merely knowing the things listed above, you can begin to understand where the majority of your sales are coming from. Once you know that, you can prioritize that specific channel to maximize its revenue.
2. Use Your Competitor’s Strategies to Your Own Benefit
Henry Ford once said, ‘The competitor to be feared is the one who never bothers about you at all.’
Putting Ford’s legendary status aside, you need to disregard that statement as of today. As an eCommerce business, your direct competitors are your most outstanding teachers.
Besides, you have to consider that you and your competitors are going for the same consumer base. Thus, analyzing their sales patterns and incorporating that into your marketing strategies will be invaluable.
Perhaps, you could use embedded analytics tools such as dashboards for streamlining the adjustments needed in your campaign. Some of these adjustments could be related to:
· Your competitor’s capitalization on online trends
· Direct customer feedback for a competing product variant to help improve your own
· Distribution of your competitor’s marketing content on various platforms
3. Analyze Consumer Behavior to Modify and Augment Your Product
The online shopping experience has changed completely. For example, in 2021, global eCommerce sales amounted to $4.9.
When dealing with such a massive industry, you need to understand that attention spans are incredibly fleeting. When offered a better deal by another source, your customer will waste no time choosing it.
Data analytics can help you in this regard. You can have consistent answers to the consumer’s behavioral patterns using the gathered information.
Some of these insights include:
· The most sought-after product in your inventory
· The discrepancy between customers wish-listing products but not adding them to their cart
· The relevancy of other suggested products that can interest your customer
Gathering and then using this information is an exhaustive process. That is where a business intelligence tool will help you convert disorganized data into a structured sales plan.
4. Strategize Personalized Multi-Platform Offers
Up until now, you have been thinking from a company’s perspective. It’s time you look at things from your customer’s point of view.
Ask yourself this: What does any customer want the most?
The answer isn’t related to your product. If you guessed that, you are wrong. Every one of your customers wants to feel special.
Sending out mass marketing emails will not help you increase your sales. It would be best if you personalize them. That’s a seemingly impossible task, considering the scope of your consumer base.
Data analytics makes that possible. By leveraging information on the behavioral patterns of your customers, you can organize them into sub-categories. Once that’s done, personalizing marketing offers becomes a breeze.
Consequently, customers are more likely to purchase a product if it specifically targets their interests.
Wrapping Up
Are there more ways to use data analytics to increase sales for your eCommerce business? Yes, most definitely, there are. The way you leverage data analytics tools is unique to you. The points mentioned above are a general guide.
For instance, if you are looking to capture a market for gaming accessories, you need to gather data on which video games are popular at the moment. Then, it would help if you worked on incorporating that data into the manufacturing process of your product.
If you need more reaffirmation, Mary Kay Ash has a memorable quote about how to increase your sales. To quote:
‘Pretend that every person you meet has a sign around their neck that says make me feel important.’
A business intelligence tool won’t help you meet the people you want to sell to. However, it will help you understand how to do it.