Data is one of your most valuable tools in the modern digital marketplace. No matter what kind of business or service you operate, data utilization can help you make the most of your situation and maximize your success. But how can you avoid data paralysis that comes out of too much data and too little action?
Fortunately, the strategies laid out here can help you streamline your data applications to get you closer to your goals. Whether you operate a brick-and-mortar or digital business, follow these strategies for more transformative data solutions.
Learn the True Value of Your Data
Making the most of your data requires you to fully understand the worth of that data. In the modern economy, big data is a market valued at $138.9 billion, a staggering number that represents a range of opportunities for the businesses that hope to cultivate their slice of this value. But the worth of your data will go beyond its immediate cost-saving or revenue-building features.
Instead, the true value of your data can be estimated as a function of your usable data plus the expertise you employ in extracting insights from that data. First, you need good data. Then, your ability to use this tool comes down to how well you can analyze information and produce narratives that inform your larger situation.
For example, Netflix has had incredible success with a subscriber base of over 100 million. This success isn’t a mistake. Netflix achieved its results through comprehensive data collection and application strategies that leveraged customer interests with their personal data. Their recommendation algorithm influences about 80% of the content streamed on the platform and has been mostly unchanged since its inception in 2009.
The true value of data exists in its ability to produce effective insights over time. Calculate the value of your information by assessing the results possible through predictive analytics, a subset of AI used to model potential future outcomes. Predictive analytics tools can help you estimate the value of data-driven processes for a complicated market.
However, your value estimations will be thrown off by bad data. That’s why a quality assurance check is another must for making the most of your data.
Validate the Authority of Your Data
To validate the authority of your data, you must be prepared to analyze your sources and compare incoming data against historical datasets. This is vital for any business making use of data since faulty information can damage the outcomes of all your data-driven innovations.
If you’re using a data vendor, there are many questions you should ask about their process and pipeline. For instance, you’ll want to know whether information comes from online or offline census data, whether the data is exclusive, and whether the vendor works with self-regulatory bodies. From here, you can better judge data quality.
Additionally, the authority of your data will depend on how it’s structured. An effective approach will segment data with accuracy and attention to detail based on recency, frequency of action, and declared or demonstrated behaviors. Then, it’s time to onboard the data for scalability and easy reference without impacting the integrity of that data. Fortunately, the data management tools available for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and marketing offer all kinds of verification processes. DocuSign, for instance, makes it easy to validate electronically signed documents stored in the cloud.
With data you can trust, your next step in maximizing your data-driven business efforts will be to streamline the way you go about collecting and optimizing your information.
Streamline Your Data Pipeline
Your data pipeline is your most important source of customer information. By streamlining this pipeline, you can improve your potential in just about every facet of business through the knowledge you’ll gather. But first, you’ll have to understand the tools and tricks available to you.
Fortunately, methods for enhancing the way you collect and apply data exist in everything from useful brainstorming technologies to machine learning algorithms. In the days of remotely working teams, having a platform for collaboration on the web can help you share ideas and gain new perspectives on revelations found within your datasets.
This starts with collating and coordinating your data across multiple platforms. Ideally, you’ll be able to get all your operational and customer data into one system that allows you to manage your data-driven processes from a convenient dashboard. The more intuitive a system is, the more it will be able to assist you in automating data-driven marketing and business operations.
That’s because machine learning has virtually limitless potential when it comes to evaluating all your most important customer-facing KPIs. You can use such a self-learning platform to make sales predictions, optimize prospect scoring, and even improve customer lifetime value all through algorithmic machine learning models of your business processes. Through these benefits, machine learning is transforming CRM.
Maximize Your Data Potential
These strategies are all proven methods for maximizing the impact of customer data across markets and mediums. By beginning with value and adding on innovative software platforms, you stand to improve how useful your data really is. That’s because the range of insights present in the quintillions of bytes that comprise the web can fuel innumerable business decisions that support customer success.
Explore the value of your data, validate its authority, and then streamline your data pipeline with modern tools. Greater customer understanding and business success are yours for the taking through the application of these helpful data strategies.