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Businesses used to a pen and paper sort of thing. Think of a diner where you place your order, the order gets taken to the kitchen, the cooks make you what you asked for, and somebody brings you out your food. A simple and straightforward way to run a business, indeed. Today, businesses have gotten a little more complex and customers have, too. In order to meet these complex needs for these complex customers, a little bit of data mining is virtually unavoidable.
Don’t think of data mining as a scary, expensive eventuality for your business. Instead, think of data mining as the means to craft a perfect and customized marketing and advertising campaign that hits all the right targets. Furthermore, think of data mining as an affordable and achievable goal for your business because…it is! In fact, many of the resources you need to start a data mining project for your company are already at your fingertips.
The Marketing Strategy You Didn’t Know You Needed
First, let’s have a quick explanation of data mining to convince you that it’s a step in the right direction. When a customer patronizes your business, they leave a lot more than just their money. They leave valuable information that can tell you about why they shop, where they shop, what they’re looking for, how they’re looking to get it, and so on. The information they leave behind can be tracked and compared against other customers and eventually, all that information will help you formulate a new marketing strategy to make all (or at least most) of your customers happy. It’s an added bonus of the digital age; the ability to keep tabs on your customers so you can better help them in the future.
Normally, big corporations turn to big data mining companies that will comb through every bit of email, blog comment, receipt, interaction, and then some to compile a large set of statistics and a plan to use them all to the corporation’s advantage. You can be certain that it’s a timely process that requires programmers, marketers, advertisers, and lots of money. However, at its simplest form, data mining can be done on a budget and as the savvy business owner you are, you can do it yourself.
Where To Start
To get going on your data mining journey, use the tools you (should) already have. Since data mining is about collecting digital information, start with the digital assets your company already has. First up is your website. If you haven’t already, set up your website with Google Analytics, a free (yes, free!) tool that can tell you everything from where your visitors are coming from to at which point your visitors leave. The metrics you can collect from Google Analytics can help you identify popular spots on your website that are working well and pages that could use a little more work. If you see a metric that shows your website is attracting a certain demographic, you could either continue developing your website and your business to keep that demographic interested or you can start thinking up ways to market to new demographics. For instance, if your company sells a series of bilingual books that could help both English speakers and Spanish speakers but mostly English speakers are purchasing the book, then you can start some new efforts to appeal more to Spanish speakers. And if you’re worried about navigating this tool, don’t worry. Google has plenty of resources to help you start analyzing like a pro.
The next digital asset you should start mining for your business is all social media profiles. Without even spending a dime, you already have to access to what people like, comment on, and share. Take notice of your most popular posts and figure out why they’ve been so successful. The metrics you derive from such observations can help you with every future post. But if you want to dig deeper into your social media statistics, there are tools available that can do everything from measure your Twitter reach (google Twitalyzer) to your “Pinfluence” (google Pinfluencer, a Pinterest data mining tool). By monitoring the effectiveness of your social media profiles, you can refine your strategy to attract more followers, garner more likes, and eventually, reel in more business.
Your business relies on your customers, so why not give them exactly what they’re looking for? With data mining, you can create custom-tailored marketing strategies to enhance your customers’ experiences and improve your own reputation. Be known as the business with all the know-how, the business that “gets it.” By properly tracking your digital assets like your website and social media accounts, you can find a plethora of data to get the wheels turning on your new marketing strategies and make customers happy in the process.
About the Author: Pete Wise is a Copywriter working for Luminar Insights is the premiere source of latino analytics and a reliable source of hispanic data to take your marketing campaign to the next level.
