As an online business owner, you have an amazing ability to collect an enormous amount of data regarding your customers, the competition, and the industry. But just collecting the data is not enough. You need to examine the data and then use it to make decisions about your business. When you put data first as a decision-maker preplanning benchmarks, your business will be more able to weather the natural ebbs and flows of the economy.
Recognize Risk
The data you collect can alert you to risks you may not have even considered. Think about the fact that so many people recently left Facebook. If your audience were part of the exodus, you would have started noticing the trends within your data before the mass departure took place, allowing you to set up alternatives.
Envision Opportunities
Not only will you mitigate your risk, but you will also be able to see an opportunity within the data that you may not have known without it. For example, suppose you put up a freebie about a related topic you usually don’t cover. In that case, it gets lots of interest that can signal to you another product or service idea that you otherwise might not have realized.
Enhance Customer Support
Using good customer care software that enables you to check how well you’re doing serving your customers by sending frequent requests for feedback and engaging them will help you make your customer care even better. For example, if your customers provide you with feedback that they like self-help chatbots more than calling, you can feel good about using the chatbots. If you notice the opposite, you can always remove them.
Improve Workflows
No workflow is going to be perfect right out of the gate. It will take time for you to use your workflows tweaking as you go to make them better. Using the data, you collect from your actions, whether your website, email, ads, social media, or other platforms – to improve how you do things will ensure that you can get through good and hard times.
Identify ADO
When you use the data to make choices, you’ll do a better job making decisions surrounding your automation, delegation, and outsourcing. For example, if you realize that you’re overpaying for a service based on your results, you can change course easier because you have the proof you need to make the right choice.
Start, Stop or Pause Promotions
The data you collect around your sales is essential because it helps you know whether or not what you’re doing is profitable. Sure, you may be making 20K a month, but if you’re spending more on your technology, ads, and expenses, you can use the data to make the right decision.
Notice Industry Trends
When you get used to checking your metrics and paying close attention to industry news, you may begin to notice trends before the general public or before it’s even discussed in an industry magazine. When this happens, you’ll become an industry thought leader.
The longer you run your online business, the more data you can capture, and the more data you have over time, the more accurate your predictions will become. When you set up your benchmarks and put in place the tech to examine them, don’t just monitor it; act on it.
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