Top Strategies and Tools for Data-Driven Decision-Making

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Marketing is cool, but you know what’s cooler? Data. 

Yes, from tech giants to small businesses; everyone is embracing the value of data and using it to support their business processes. 

While content and marketing remain invaluable tools in the digital sphere, data analytics is the next big thing in the market primarily due to the rise of data science. 

Now, you might ask, “why data specifically”?

The eCommerce world of today is not as it was before. 

It’s now a cut-throat industry with competition at every step of the way. Businesses need competitive advantage and data analytics, coupled with clever decision-making, helps them get it. 

If you’re an eCommerce store, then you need to invest in data analytics today. Far from being a bandwagon trend, data analytics helps you gain in-depth data on your customers. 

As a result, you get to make tactical business decisions that help you gain a major competitive advantage in your business. 

This post is aimed at discussing all things data. To be specific, we’ll answer how, using data, you can gain valuable business insights that help support business decision-making. 

So, let’s begin, shall we? 

The Problem: Too Much Data, Not Enough Analysis   

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You might have seen this one coming. Data isn’t something new. It’s been around since before the words, “statistics” or “data science” were ever coined. 

If you’ve been in the digital business for some time now, no doubt, you’d know about Google Analytics and the quality of data that they provide. Besides that, you have plenty of quality analytics tools built either for that sole purpose or come equipped with business software. 

But here’s the disconnect. You have all that data and you don’t know what to do with it. Here at Codup, we’ve seen our B2B eCommerce development clients use their business analytics software just to see a few basic data points. 

They range from traffic analysis to daily sales, that’s all. Some just rely on the dashboard to track performance. When we go in-depth, however, we see an even broader picture of the business. 

These are some important things you need to take into consideration if you’re looking to gain insights into your customers.

Why Data-Driven Decision-Making Is Important? 

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For the continual growth of a business, data is vitally important. 

It’s not just limited to adequate decision-making, but rather it helps businesses to create new business opportunities. 

As a direct result, it enables businesses to gain more revenue and improve their brand.

As already discussed, the digital world is highly competitive and constantly innovating as we write this post. To compete at an equal footing, you must know the customer and leverage the data to make powerful and informed decisions. 

Data is an asset that when used correctly can increase your revenue by a significant margin. 

10 Tips and Takeaways for An Enhanced Data-Driven Decision-Making Strategy

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How can you leverage data to take advantage of it? Well, in this post, we’ll be discussing the ten ways you can use data for efficient decision-making. 

1) Set Sales Targets 

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To measure your data points precisely, you need to set goals that are within reach. How much customer acquisition did you get for this quarter? 

How much of your existing customers returned? How much did sales increase or decrease during a quarter? 

You should set goals for a particular period of time and once that period has been reached, you should use the data gathered for further decision making. These periodic goals ensure that you’re kept on the right track. 

2) Search The Right Data 

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After the data collection process is finished, it’s time to narrow it down to the data that you actually want. 

Again, this could be anything from the number of sales you’re gaining or the position of your store on search engines.

3) Focus on Data Visualization 

Just having data is one thing, but presenting it in a meaningful way is another. During board meetings, you have people who are busy and don’t have time to see numbers on the screen. 

They want things simplified and explained quickly and efficiently. This is where data visualization comes in. 

There are several great data visualization software available that you can use to transform raw data into beautiful visualizations.

For inspiration, you should check out the subreddit: dataisbeautiful

4) Constant Evolution of Data-Driven Decision-Making 

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When they get their analytics process standardized, most businesses stop analyzing and start focusing only on that particular range of data. 

That shouldn’t be the case. You should look at every trough and peak of your data points with a question and delve deeper into why such things are a case. 

As your business grows, so should your data analysis skills. 

5) Understanding and Analysis 

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This may seem quite obvious to you, but it’s worth mentioning. Once you have the data points collected, you need a good solution to extract good insights from it. 

This is the one thing that will enable you to make accurate decisions for your business. 

But for that, you need background aka, the problem. 

What’s the current problem that you’re facing in your business? For example, you want to increase the number of conversions in your store. 

For that, you need to understand where in the marketing funnel are your customers bouncing off. This is the context you need to certify. 

When you have a problem, you can utilize the data to make accurate business decisions. 

6) Find The Unresolved Questions 

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Within the ecosystem of your website, there are always questions that remain unanswered. 

These are questions that you need to be proactive about and answer. The right data analysis questions need to be asked for you to move ahead. You can get the data you need, but you also need to ask important questions as well. 

7) Gather Data Smartly 

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When you gather the right data, you make the right decisions. Yes, whether you’re a small business or whatever, you need to know the importance of getting the correct metrics for your business. Otherwise, you’re bound to fail in your data-driven decision-making.

8) Revisit and Reevaluate 

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There are moments when we get caught up in our biases due to which we fail to take into account possible alternatives. 

For example, we have a set standard on what metrics we need to study. While that’s good, it fails to account for valuable data coming in from different locations. 

This is where the data analyst’s role shines and gathers useful data for interpretation. Having multiple data points to support your business makes things a lot more efficient in the long run. 

When you’re measuring performance it’s best to look back and see the gaps and points you’re missing in your analytics and solve them accordingly. 

Improvise

If we were to conclude this article, we cannot disregard the importance of improvisation. You see, in the long run, if you don’t improvise, you’re going to face serious problems with your data-driven decision-making. With trends and seasons, it’s important that you constantly adjust and tweak your products. 

If you’re a WooCommerce B2B store owner and want to enhance your productivity, then B2BWoo is the best option for you. It’s a one-stop-shop for your every WooCommerce B2B eCommerce solutions.

Technical writer by day, focusing on all things WordPress, programming, and B2B eCommerce. On the down-low, I like to read historical non-fiction or watch movies, depending on my mood.