As technology moves on at pace, forward-looking businesses are looking to harness data to gain advantage and help drive their business strategy - whether that's revenue growth, profit optimisation or defensive tactics. Data science curates mass data for analysis and visualisation, such as setting up KPI scorecards fed from Google Analytics / Merchant Centre / Search Console, as well as including predictive models set up within BI.
The good news is that you’re already a ‘data scientist’ because you calculate your revenues and profits which, in the business world, is the most basic block of data science. However, that’s only the start point...
There are many more data points that need to be collected and analysed for running modern websites.
Base Dimension
Many of these are obvious and form the base dimension including number of visitors split by channel and location, bounce rates and dwell times, enquiries received, checkout sales funnel analysis, order revenues, abandonment and returns.
Practical Tip #1: Google Analytics (GA) will be your primary source for much of this together with form builder within REC+ and Order Manager.
Marketing Dimension
This includes ROI analysis for marketing programs by each campaign and customer type, average order values, prospect tracking and lead conversion values.
Practical Tip #2: Costing data can be combined with GA data to form a KPI scorecard to analyse this. Use REC+ Prospect Manager to track and manage leads.
Profitability Dimension
This extends into profitability and cost analysis for the overall business and how to release cash.
Practical Tip #3: Augment your KPI scorecard with profit & loss data to build an overall business scorecard. Connect your Sage accounts to the Afinitis BI to run 10 million data queries that unlock a mine of extra information.
Brand Dimension
This looks at ‘softer’ metrics including brand loyalty and likelihood of customers recommending you, ease of doing business through your website and customer service satisfaction.
Practical Tip #4: Implement NPS, CES and CSAT feedback forms on your site using Form Builder’s new rating system. Share the outcome with employees and use it to drive continuous improvement.
Market Discovery
This seeks to identify new market opportunities and competitor threats or gaps to exploit, as well as answering why visitors did not become customers.
Practical Tip #5: Extend the use of forms on your site with carefully crafted questions that uncover meaningful answers you can research. Use our Price Compare tool to monitor prices on competitor websites and examine their pricing strategies.
Let Us Help You
Our strategy consultants can assist in defining your KPIs, balanced scorecards and feedback loops as part of our marketing service. In addition we can also talk about Prospect Manager, joining the Price Compare beta program and using Afinitis with your Sage accounts where your business turnover is £1m+. Contact us today to get started.
