Mastering Digital Analytics: 8 Data-Driven Strategies for Business Growth

In the era of hyperconnectivity, where practically everything is now going digital, data has become king. Every business needs data to make its moves — including you, our dear reader. So much so, that it gave rise to digital analytics strategies to master this advent of information.

So, if you are looking for concrete and actionable insights on how to leverage data, then you are in the right place. Read on to learn the best data-driven strategies for business growth that you can apply today.

What is Digital Analytics?

First things first, what exactly is it? Chances you have heard of data analytics, moreso if you are a digital marketer and you are intimately involved with technology.

The short answer is this: It is a process to understand a certain matter. 

In the case of marketing, this can span internally to externally, ranging from understanding your campaigns for future reference to understanding your customers, competitors, and the nature of the market you are in.

To expound this process, you can break down digital analytics into a set of steps:

• Step one: Collect information
• Step two: Analyse the data gathered
• Step three: Report the data-backed inference.

What is the importance of digital analytics in business growth?

So, why is it important to your business? How will it exactly help you grow?

Imagine this, you are setting out on an adventure. You know your destination, but you do not know how long it will take you and the possible perils you might face along the way. 

Now ask yourself this: Will you just go immediately without prior planning and preparation? Will you go without any provisions and even weapons to keep you safe on your journey — just the clothes on your back?

Most of us would say no, it would be a crazy thing to do.

Similar to going on your metaphorical perilous adventure, navigating the highly competitive market that you are in requires you to equip yourself with information.

Think of the famous proverb by Francis Bacon, “Knowledge is power.” 

In today’s digital era, we have access to a wealth of data — everything can be broken into data. Hence, being equipped with digital analytics strategies helps you navigate the market and make the necessary decisions to reach your destination.

8 Digital Analytics Strategies for Business Growth

With that said, let us get to the core of this article which is: How can you use digital analytics strategies to create effective digital advertising campaigns?

Data-Driven Marketing: How To Use Analytics For Targeted Marketing Campaigns

Using data for business success is the standard today. In fact, if you do not use it, then you will fall behind your competition.

First on our list of digital analytics strategies is understanding data-driven marketing.

As its name suggests, data-driven marketing is a strategy where you use data that you collect from various marketing channels to get a better picture of who are your customers. 

Why do you need to apply this strategy?

Data-driven marketing provides you with a host of benefits, which are as follows: 

• Increase conversion
•  Reduce marketing costs
• Improve customer experience

To execute this, here is a simple step-by-step guide to achieving data-driven business growth: 

1. Collect data from your customers. This can come from your website, the customer relations management system that you are using, and even the social media platforms that you are on.
2. Analyse the data to identify trends and patterns. This will be used to fine-tune your marketing message so it can resonate with them.
3. Improve audience segmentation based on their demographics, pain points, and interests, to name a few.
4. Create targeted marketing messages that are relevant to them, especially about their interest and pain points. 
5. Measure and optimise as needed to ensure your campaigns are still effective.

Customer Segmentation: Tailoring Products And Services For Different Customer Segments

Next on our list of digital analytics strategies is customer segmentation. 

To expound what was mentioned above, this is the process of grouping your audience into “segments” based on certain factors that they share, which can be: 

• Demographics
• Interests
• Pain Points
• Viewing Behaviour
• Purchasing Behaviour

Knowing the defining factors about each of your audience enables you to provide a better experience for them. More importantly, you can further develop your products and services to better serve each audience segment that you want to cater to.

Here is a simple guide on how to do it: 

1. Identify your customer segments. You can go back to the data you have collected to identify the similarities between each person.
2. Understand the needs of each segment. You can take it a step further and conduct polls, focus groups, and surveys to have a more in-depth understanding — especially if you are developing or updating your products and services. 
3. Tailor your product and services to each segment. This can be done by developing more options or versions of your products to make them more inclusive or providing them with the option to mix-match your services according to their needs.
4. Test and refine. You basically need to reach out to a select number of your customers and ask for feedback about your improved product or service list.

Conversion Rate Optimisation: Enhancing Website And Landing Page Performance

Third on our list of digital analytics strategies is conversion rate optimisation. 

CRO is a strategy where you follow a set of steps to raise the number of visitors to your website and landing pages. More importantly, you improve these sites to guide your visitors into doing certain desired actions, like: 

• Make a purchase
• Sign up for your newsletter
• Contact you
• Avail your services

With that said, here is how to enhance your website and landing pages’ performance:

1. Set a clear and achievable goal. While it is good to aim high, it is important to be realistic since this will gauge if the optimisation was effective.
2. Analyse the current performance of every page. You need to identify the elements you need to improve and pinpoint if any problems are impeding traffic to your site or conversion.
3. Testing before optimising to get a base reference later on.
4. Apply the necessary changes to optimise your website, for example, your web content, design, navigation, and call-to-action, to name a few.
5. Test and continuously monitor. After applying the changes, make sure to test again to see if your site is performing much better and continue monitoring to resolve any issues right away.

Predictive Analytics: Leveraging Data To Anticipate Customer Behaviour

One of the fourth digital analytics strategies that you can apply right now to grow your business is using predictive analytics.

Predictive analytics answer the question, “What comes next?” This is done by analysing large data sets and identifying the trends and patterns. From there, you can make inferences on what happens next. 

Specifically, you can use this to anticipate customer behaviour and future-proof your business.

To execute this type of analytics-driven marketing strategy, you need to do the following steps:

1. Collate the data that you recently collected and previous data sets.
2. Remove error and inconsistency to get a more accurate prediction from analytics models.
3. Train your chosen predictive analytics model using the data you have collected and cleaned.
4. Use the model to anticipate customer behaviours. Examples of this can be identifying customers who are likely to churn or leave your brand and pinpointing upsell opportunities with your loyal customers.

Product Development: Using Data Insights To Improve Existing Products And Create New Ones

Fifth in our list of digital analytics strategies is underlining the importance of product development using data insights. 

Product development is essentially a process where you go back to the drawing board and figure out the products that will help your customers resolve certain pain points or challenges they experience. 

This particular strategy requires collaboration between you and your audience, here is how:

1. Collect data as per usual. You can take this a step further and conduct surveys and focus groups to understand what are their needs. You can even get inspiration from either checking the comment sections or directly asking your audience on social media.
2. Analyse the data and identify the most common challenge they all experience.
3. Apply these insights to either improve an existing product or develop a new one that adds a new feature that directly resolves the specific pain point.
4. Invite some of your loyal customers to test your product and ask for feedback to refine it.

Personalisation: Delivering Personalised Customer Experiences

Chances are personalisation is one of the digital analytics strategies that you are intimately familiar with. 

Personalisation is a strategy that has become a standard practice among businesses, regardless of industry or size. As its name suggests, you tailor-fit your marketing message and the experience you provide to pique the interest of your target audience and guide them into taking the desired action — like subscribing to your newsletter which, in turn, boost your email marketing efforts.

Here is how you can provide your audience with a tailor-fit experience: 

1. Update your collection of data as needed.
2. Improve your customer segment as needed.
3. Create content that is geared towards each customer segment. For example, in email marketing, you can personalise it by adding their name or creating a  birthday exclusive greeting while gently guiding them to make a purchase.

Competitive Analysis: Staying Ahead By Analysing Competitor Data

If you want to know what your competitors are doing then this is one of the digital analytics strategies you need to do: Conduct competitive analysis.

This refers to the process where you gather every possible information you can find about a specific competitor and analyse it to get a picture of the following things: 

• Marketing strategies they are using
• The way they interact and maintain a relationship with their audience
• Keywords 
• Content that gets the most social traction
• How they position their brand
• Strengths
• Weaknesses

Having this kind of information enables you to spot the opportunities to adapt their methods and also attract their audience. To do this, you need to do the following: 

1. Research to identify your direct competitors (companies that offer the same products and services as you) and indirect competitors (companies that offer different things but target the same people).
2. Collect data about each of them.
3. Analyse the data you collected to identify and understand their methods, strategies, keywords, strengths, and weaknesses, to name a few.
4. Compare your brand against them to get a better idea of how you measure up against them.
5. Develop a plan that is based on the insights you have learned and adopt some of their methods and strategies to further improve your marketing efforts.

Data Governance And Privacy: Ensuring Responsible Data Handling

Last, but not least, on our list of actionable digital analytics strategies are data governance and privacy.

Why is it important?

Ensuring your business’s data assets are protected, including your customer data, shows that you have integrity and are trustworthy. In turn, this will provide you with a host of benefits in the process:

• Ensure you comply with laws and regulations 
• Earn your customers' trust in your brand.
• Reduce cyber security risks.
• Build up your credibility as a trustworthy figure in the industry.

To do this, you need to follow these steps:

1. Develop a data governance policy. Make sure to check all relevant laws first when you are developing it.
2. Educate your employees on data governance to ensure everyone follows it.
3. Implement data security measures to bolster your cyber security defences.
4. Actively monitor your organisation’s data handling practices and immediately resolve potential issues to ensure the data is properly protected. 

Master these digital analytics strategies… and you are golden!

With all that said, when you apply these digital analytics strategies you are bound to see considerable growth in your business and ensure you are consistently achieving your goals.

Of course, it is important to note that applying these strategies may take time and the tools necessary will require an upfront investment. Even so, the benefits you will reap from these will far outweigh them.

Regardless of your business’s size, you can apply these strategies. You also have the option to partner with a digital marketing agency to ensure these are applied to help boost your marketing efforts. 

Ready to master digital analytics and drive business growth? Hire the best digital marketer at Flexi Digital Marketing and start harnessing the power of data today!