In 2017 having good data is the key to success. However, the competitive advantage depends on HOW you collect and leverage your data. What makes your data more relevant?

To increase the impact of your data, it is fundamental to be aware of the questions that drive your business forward. How do I find my customers? How can customers be engaged more successfully? And how do I engage my staff to ask the right questions to keep the data relevant? Only clean and relevant data can be leveraged and guarantee a return on the time and money invested into the collection.

Finding

A good way of finding new customers is analyzing the existing ones. Each customer is different but they have many things in common. Identifying commonalities amongst customers enable your staff to link data and draw the right conclusions. The combination of transactional data with per customer business metrics or per customer behavior enables your staff to recognize patterns that are valuable to forecast, meet and exceed customer behavior and needs - not by chance but by knowledge.

Engaging

A successful sales rep or marketing department collects and uses personalized data to engage their target. Monitor recent activities of your prospect or prospects’ upcoming events. Social media is a valuable source of information to engage based on personalized information.

Closing

Data plays an important role in sealing the deal. At this stage your goal is to create a need for your product by drawing relevancy to their problem. How can I provide valuable information beforehand to create a wow-factor for the decision maker? The Wow comes from your ability to trend and interpret prospect’s data. Non-transactional data such as social media profiles help you improve in understanding your clients.

Growing

You can start today by rating each customer’s engagement with your business. Determine a set of criteria and a scoring system to identify high and low engaged customers and use this to segment your customers. Find the reason behind certain patterns to increase the relevance of your data.

These simple tips help you to collect the right data and teach your staff how to leverage your data. In 2017, leveraging your data makes the difference.