How can Business Development Leaders Leverage Business Analytics for Revenue Growth-Realization?

In current competitive business environments, organizations have to look beyond sales processes, marketing, product, teams, and sales training, to drive revenue growth. It is a continuous, step-by-step process that requires business development leaders and sales teams to have a fundamentally different outlook for improving their return on investments (ROI). Big data paired with business analytics is improving the chances of delivering successful value and change. Analytics integrates data sets from multiple sources to find key insights, find patterns, and predict future trends. According to a 2018 study by MicroStrategy, companies from five nations, including Brazil, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have reported the following stats after incorporating business analytics: • 60% to boost process and cost-efficiency • 57% to drive strategy and change • 52% to monitor and improve financial performance The research also shows that 71% of global enterprises predict that their investments in analytics will accelerate in the next three years. In light of the growing trend of business analytics, business development leaders must have an in-depth understanding to make better decisions that lead to revenue growth. A Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services found that nearly 97% of the survey respondents have adopted analytics to reduce costs, improve risk management, and increase profitability. However, many organizations struggle with the accuracy and consistency of the data. Table of Content 1. Why is business analytics becoming more popular now? 2. What are the benefits of business analytics? 2.1 Analyzing data to identify business opportunities 2.2 Combining multiple datasets 2.3 Monitor social media 2.4 Increase revenue and lower costs 2.5 Informed decision-making 2.6 Identify fraud 2.7 Find an ideal demographic and segment your audience 3. How can business analytics drive your revenue and growth strategy? 3.1 Maintain responsive relationships with customers 3.2 Drive greater revenue opportunities with machine learning 3.3 Data-driven A/B testing 3.4 Improve sales cycle 3.5 Competitive analysis 4. How to maximize ROI with business analytics? 4.1 Start with a strategy 4.2 Develop actionable insights 4.3 Experiment Frequently 4.4 Monitor, adjust and experiment again 5. Conclusion 1. Why is business analytics becoming more popular now? Business analytics involves collecting, analyzing, and presenting conclusions from structured and unstructured data. Business development leaders utilize data analytics tools to solve business issues and increase efficiency and productivity. Irrespective of industries and businesses, analytics has become a buzzword as it’s rapidly changing the way managerial decisions are being made. The popularity of business analytics can be grouped into three categories: need, availability and affordability, and culture change. 2. What are the benefits of business analytics? Business analytics is about analyzing past performance and using the results to prepare for future endeavors. Businesses can quickly analyze historical data about their marketing campaigns, employee turnover, social media presence, revenue, operational efficiency, etc., with the right tools to improve these sections. Read on to find benefits of business analytics: 2.1 Analyzing data to identify business opportunities One of the primary reasons to start investing in business analytics is that it helps companies gain insights. It also helps visualize data into comprehensive graphics like charts, tables, and graphs, making sure that decision becomes an exciting process. Comprehensive graphics allow you to extract data, identify trends, and generate relevant insights with clarity. It also helps to deliver essential data to non-technical audiences like your employees or stakeholders. 2.2 Combining multiple datasets Businesses have to market their products and services on multiple platforms that gather data of their own. Analytics tools like Google Analytics help companies combine data from various social media platforms and display them on a single dashboard. An overview dashboard helps marketing teams to keep track of all their campaigns on multiple channels in a single place for more informed decision-making. 2.3 Monitor social media Advertising on social media platforms in search engines is expensive. Hence, marketing teams must use analytical methods based on historical data to generate maximum return on investment. Teams can tweak every element of online advertising and digital marketing like landing pages, product descriptions, popups, stories, tweets, and posts based on insights from data analysis. 2.4 Increase revenue and lower costs Every business in the manufacturing industry has to conduct tests to validate their products and get optimal results. This incurs high manufacturing costs. Alternatively, businesses can invest in predictive analysis, which improves decision-making without the requirement of running multiple tests. 2.5 Informed decision-making Companies have to adapt to the latest trends, so they can better serve their customers. However, sales and marketing teams require knowledge of real-time trends and current happenings to stay on the top and ahead of the competition. Analyzing data through business analytics tools allows companies to check the latest trends and use historical data for forecasting marketing campaigns and their success. 2.6 Identify fraud One of the most significant advantages of data analytics is finding and reducing fraudulent activities. Financial institutions are more prone to fraud. They use the business analytics tool to analyze the customer’s previous transactions and predict their behavior. Similarly, other industries can also use predictive analysis for the customers or client profile to gauge risk levels before investing or collaborating with them. Data analytics helps businesses reduce significant losses and build strong customer relationships. 2.7 Find an ideal demographic and segment your audience. Companies can increase sales only when their products and marketing campaigns reach the right audience through the right platform. Although every company starts creating a buyer persona, business analytics can help you define your target audience by providing insights about the location, age group, interest, and preferred platform for accessing your website. You can also create separate campaigns segmenting your audience either into age groups or their geographic locations. 3. How can business analytics drive your revenue and growth strategy? Predictive analytics focuses on making predictions about possible futures. It is defined as using data, algorithms, and machine learning to identify the likelihood of future results based on historical information. 3.1 Maintain responsive relationships with customers Many industry studies show that B2B and B2C customers now expect real-time responses to their queries, requests, and transactions. High-performance eCommerce sites like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and others fuel these expectations using chatbots powered by artificial intelligence. A 2018 study by HubSpot found that 82% of consumers want an immediate response from brands on their queries or sales questions. 90% of customers rated quick response as an essential factor for rating customer service experience. According to CrazyEgg, 38% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company if they offer live chat support. Offering live support will encourage customers to come back to your website. Emarketer found that 63% of customers were more likely to return to a website that offers live chat. 3.2 Drive greater revenue opportunities Real-time business intelligence enables rapid improvements in the automotive, consumer, energy, transportation, and logistics industries. Your target audience is knowledgeable buyers. They will scout for similar products, check prices, and authenticate your brand via social media before purchasing. They read blogs and check reviews. The good news is that you have control over your online presence, which directly relates to increasing sales and revenue. You can increase conversions and drive traffic to your website by moving the needle into sections that work best among your audience. Data analytics gives you actionable insights to understand customers’ journeys that can improve your strategy. 3.3 Data-driven A/B testing Effectively using business analytics is all about using historical data for testing changes. Companies can track metrics such as what drives customers in completing a purchase or taking any other desired action. Testing changes on your website and social media platforms have become with the A/B testing method. A/B testing, also known as split testing, helps brands understand which experience resonates more with their users. In an A/B test, you pit two options against each other and collect data about customers’ interaction with both options. You can create two new versions or test the new version against the current version. Split testing services such as Google Optimize and Optimizely can help in streamlining the process. They can also make recommendations based on performance and help you evaluate the results. 3.4 Improve sales cycle Sales teams often have to stay updated with popular product configurations to offer customized pitches for new and existing customers alike. Real-time business analytics allows companies to empower their sales teams with every tiny shift in product configurations, cross-sells, and upsells, as every little element significantly impacts revenue. 3.5 Competitive analysis Brands can gain a competitive edge by managing, analyzing, and manipulating the data generated by their customers. Data analysis can improve budgeting, planning, finances, and forecasting so that you can stay ahead of the competition. This data manipulation and visualization goes beyond standard analysis through an Excel sheet. Instead, you need advanced BI or analytics software to process data and present it in an easy-to-see format quickly. Such analytics platforms also help businesses in keeping track of their competitor’s online presence and marketing performance. 4. How to maximize ROI with business analytics? 4.1 Start with a strategy Implementing a rushed strategy with the right data will never work. You can’t randomly start using data from business analytics tools and expect a quick boost in ROI. Expecting analytics to provide value to your website or increase ROI magically is a vague goal to start with. One of the keys to refining your current campaigns and customer experience is to plan what you want to improve with data analysis. You must decide what you’ll measure, as well as how you’ll measure it. Otherwise, you will have many data, graphs, tables, and other reports that’ll have no discernible value. Make a process that clearly states your objectives, plans for improvement, and work allocation. Who will be managing reports? Who will pull out insights and improvement areas? How and where to gather and store data? A strategy must answer these questions before you invest time and money into business analytics. 4.2 Develop actionable insights Data extraction and examining are the core of data analytics. However, they aren’t directly related to increasing ROI. You must learn to pull out actionable insights from reports and dashboards. A business analytics tool can automate report creation and real-time dashboards, so you can work on developing the next steps. You must be able to tie trends and metrics to concepts and customer behavior. For example, let’s assume you are testing two campaigns for a holiday season. Chances are, one of the campaigns will be performing relatively better than the other. However, without proper knowledge of extracting insights, these numbers won’t do any good. The insight from this split test is that the campaign resonated well with the audience because they could relate to the ads. The campaign motivated them to either buy your product or fill a survey in exchange for a free e-book. The best data analytics strategies are the ones that can combine multiple metrics and data points to derive complex interpretations. 4.3 Experiment Frequently Experimenting with your website design, landing pages, and blog post images offers opportunities for your business to accelerate its growth. Testing provides insight and lets you find the best alternatives that resonate with your audience. Furthermore, you don’t need complex tests. Instead, a simple A/B test will work well for testing and comparing results without the hassle. 4.4 Monitor, adjust and experiment again Social media platforms allow you to run both free and paid marketing campaigns. You can measure their effectiveness and improve them in the future by analyzing data. Business analytics helps you find out your audience’s interests and their demographic information. It also allows you to reach the right audience on the right social media platform. Once you have the data, adjust your campaigns to make them more attractive for your audience. Test variations, collect data, analyze it, and do it repeatedly. 5. Conclusion Don’t be one of those companies that give the cold shoulder to investing in business analytics. Data-driven decisions provide a boost to your online presence while also increasing your brand’s ROI. Create a plan before pulling actionable insights from data and implement it properly. Your company can increase sales, boost customer confidence, and lower marketing costs by trusting the data.