Grow Beyond Historical Data Using Real-Time Data Analytics
Customers expect you to use their information to better understand them. In fact, around 50 percent of U.S. consumers will share personal data , but they will expect better experiences in return for sharing that data with you.
So, if consumers are willing to share this data, expect better experiences and will pay more for those experiences, then the solution is simple: businesses need to use analytics to understand and act on that customer data. The key is using that knowledge to deliver great experiences every time a customer interacts with their brand.
HOW TO DELIVER GREAT EXPERIENCES WITH DATA ANALYTICS: TWO APPROACHES
To deliver those valued experiences, marketers need to determine how to change the business for the better. This has to start with data analysis, usually in the form of a data project. These projects have taken different forms across time, but generally, they rely on marketing technologists or data analysts to conduct a comprehensive review of performance data related to incoming audiences or potential customers for a brand.
Traditionally, marketers have primarily used historic analysis to look at year-over-year trends. This lets them identify successful patterns and create an experience that fits a model of customer behavior. This is still a highly useful strategy, because historical data helps companies compare year-over-year success and look at longitudinal performance.
Understanding this slice of data is critical to understand changes in your business across time. Analytics tools have made it easier to view this data and make sense of it in a way that helps your business make decisions. More recently, however, many brands have sought out a newer technique: real-time data analytics.
We know that customer behavior and buying trends change fast. Real-time analytics solves for the challenge of ever-evolving data. To have the most immediate business impact you need to be personalizing experiences to each individual. This means being able to perform analytics in real time. Doing analytics in real time goes hand-in-hand with the ability to orchestrate those experiences in real time. Together, the combination of historical and real-time analytics help guide customers down an ideal journey.
WHEN YOU SHOULD USE HISTORICAL DATA
Marketers use historical customer data to help create a complete picture of their customers. This serves as a starting point for personalization because it includes everything from purchase history to unchanging demographic information. This static data such as customer demographics (e.g., age, gender, location) should also be used in an initial analysis to determine trends among customers. Once they’ve accomplished this first pass of the analysis, marketers can use it to understand and map the customer experience as it is today.