This is the first in a new series of blogs about the data that your company has, how to understand it, how to use it better to help build your business and how we can help you to do this.
Data science has become big business in recent years and multinational corporations have become very adept at leveraging data to inform their strategies. Whilst this may not be relevant for your SME, there will always be ways that you can better use the information you hold.
This blog will give a bit of an introduction to help you understand what data you will have and how, generally, small businesses don’t use the information they hold effectively to help the business grow.
So, what data do you have?
Now this is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Most small businesses will have similar sets of data – information on your customers (names, contact details, services provided etc.) and your incomings & outgoings. That info is obviously extremely important for your business’s ongoing prosperity, but it’s easy to not really think about this information at more than a surface level. Just this information can be used in many ways to help you identify new methods to grow your business.
There is also a wealth of information that you may not consider. Let’s say you’ve done a marketing campaign on social media. The information from that - both from the direct analytics apps such as Instagram or Facebook provide and from the information on sales and customers following the campaign - can help you to understand who is interested in your business. This can help you to better understand your business’s target audience.
As well as this, you should also consider the information you can get on the market your business is in; competitors and trends for what customers are looking for, can provide useful insights. Whilst this might not be your data, you can still use it to make sure you are using your time and energy effectively to find the right space for your business.
How can you use this data to help your business grow?
As this is in an introductory blog, we’ll just use one example here to give some context to what we’re talking about - analysing customer trends.
As a business owner you’ll (hopefully!) have comprehensive records of your sales and/or service provided and the clients you provided these services to. It goes without saying that you use this data to, you know, get paid and for your tax returns.
It’s easy to stop there and never really consider that information outside of these immediate uses. However, that information can provide an incredible insight into your customers, what they want and when they want it, helping you to target your business towards the right people at the right time.
Let’s say there’s a customer who has previously used your business during a specific time of year. Analysing the information you have could help you spot this trend, allowing you to both plan in time for expected work over the same time period next year, and also helping you to plan when you should pick up contact with that customer again (you may want to proactively contact them before the time period to confirm they will use your business again).
That is just one example, and there are a number of other ways in which you can use the data you have more effectively to grow your business. Look out for our next blog, where we’ll take a deeper look at different ways you can use the data your business will hold.
What are you allowed to do with this data?
A final, slightly boring, but quite important thought - it is really easy to overlook what you are actually allowed to do with the data your business holds, within the boundaries of GDPR. UK GDPR only applies to personal data however, as the Information Commissioner sets out, if you can identify an individual through the information you hold, it will constitute personal data, even if they are acting in a business capacity.
We would definitely recommend that you read the ICO’s article on the rules for business-to-business marketing, so you don’t fall foul of the (quite stringent) rules on what you can and cannot do with the personal data you will hold about your customers, potential clients and stakeholders.
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