Times are changing. How we calculate and evaluate data and information that benefits business isn’t done the way Grandpa used to do it. Data is the currency of the modern era, and more of it is coming at businesses than ever before. Having a website that is built to use this data, with cutting-edge technology that harnesses all of this information is key! The sum of the world’s data will grow from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to an incredible 175 zettabytes—that’s 175 trillion gigabytes—by 2025. For companies today, harnessing that data and turning it into a competitive advantage presents opportunities of epic proportions. 

“Smart cities, autonomous vehicles, security cameras, and countless other connected devices are generating data that’s ripe for analysis, insight, and impact,” says Jennifer Majernik Huffstetler, vice president and general manager of data center product management and storage at Intel. “And innovations in cost-effective computing will continue to drive the incredible increase in data and its potential value. Data will truly define the future.”

There is an abundance of customer information and tools available to business owners these days, and once you know how to use customer data to grow your business, the opportunity to scale can be endless. But, before you can grow, you need to know you can leverage the customer data available to you. How can you use your customers’ data to grow your business? While natural growth is possible, it can really be amplified once you fully understand how to use the data available to you.

Here are four ways business owners have used data, insights and analytics in order to experience significant growth in terms of sales, revenue and customer acquisition.

1. Provide a Better Customer Experience Online

Data can tell you a lot about the customer experience your website provides, while pinpointing areas that can be improved fairly easily. Often times, subtle changes will keep your visitors on your website longer, which then increases the chance of them converting. At VisionAmp, many of our websites are built with various “back doors” that allow the business owners to tweak and upload changing content. The more fresh your website content is, the more time people will spend on your site. The average time spent on your pages is data you will want to analyze on a page-by-page basis, depending on what your conversion goal is on particular pages. Some pieces of content will serve as doorways to an offer, while some pages will feature one offer as a conversion goal. If you can increase a visitor’s average time spent on your website, you will greatly improve your conversion rates.

2. Lower Your Overall Customer Acquisition Cost

When you are able to lower the cost of acquiring a new customer, it not only increases their lifetime value, but it also allows you to scale up your acquisition efforts across the channels that are converting the highest for you. If you are pushing paid traffic to several pieces of content on your website, you can dive into your Google Analytics data, paying attention to your event tracking. Setting up events in Google Analytics allows you to see where specific actions are taking place. For example, if you have a slide-in or pop-up offer present your website visitors with a special offer, you can see what pages are driving the highest conversion rate and which ones are failing. By eliminating the ones performing poorly and only pushing traffic to those pages that are converting nicely, you can drastically lower your acquisition cost per customer.

Setting up event tracking in Google Analytics isn’t difficult at all. You can learn more about how to collect data with this article.

3. Eliminate Wasted Marketing Dollars

Your advertising data and website data allows you to easily stop wasting money on things that simply don’t work. It eliminates the guesswork from the equation. Wasted marketing dollars can then be allocated in areas that are proven to drive results. Through data analysis and optimization, VisionAmp is able to build websites that not only use the best keywords, but also avoid using certain keywords. You want a website that is built ON PURPOSE - targeting and attracting customers, using buyer-intent keywords that generates product sales. With plenty of customer data available, the only reason a business will waste money on advertising channels that don’t work is because they just don’t know what to do with the information that’s out there.

4. Validate Business Decisions

Your customer data allows you to not only make business decisions based on facts and numbers, but also validates moves you have made. It’s next to impossible to make potentially damaging decisions when you have cold, hard data in front of you. Knowing who your ideal customer is and how much time they spend on specific pages will help drive your success. VisionAmp wants you to own a website that is built with a clear picture of who your target audience needs to be. 

VisionAmp employs a staff with over 100 years of experience. Our websites are built with data-management layers and the technology to target your specific audience. We guarantee you can have a website that not only generates more income, but one that will provide a great customer experience online. Give us a call today and let us take your business to the next level!

-Written by David Jackson, VisionAmp Content Specialist