Small business owners: Beware of the big data dump

Big data is a double-edged sword. The ability to monitor so many variables and business results can lead to higher ROI, faster sales and other benefits. Yet when small business owners monitor anything and everything, they risk losing sight of what matters and what’s really within their capabilities. ‘Managers should think beyond their silos and KPIs to company goals,’ says Laura Smous of The Resumator. Time, capital, and people are a company’s most valuable assets. A successful analytical strategy requires optimization of all three. To determine the ideal workflow, organizations need to start with their customers and look carefully at their processes for connecting with them. “Listen to everything and then start to figure out what the right questions are,” explains Mark Panay, marketing director and co-founder at Contactzilla, a CRM platform. “Leverage the insight of your customer service and support teams. Don’t use your support team as techies, use them as part of marketing.” Client-facing teams are at the front lines and know customers’ challenges. These team members can assess, qualitatively, what business milestones are most important. An analytics team should then translate these anecdotal insights into quantitative benchmarks using statistical tools for trend analysis. Uncovering the nuances Sometimes, important details aren’t quantifiable. Organizations should use proxies for measurement instead. Prior to running Contactzilla, Panay encountered the challenge of measuring intangible goals for his mobile content and marketing firm’s initiatives to drive visibility. “Measuring this was nigh on impossible but in conjunction with the other things that we were doing, we were building our brand, creating statements of intent and attracting the kind of people that we wanted to work with,” Panay says. He realized, however, that focus began with one key question. “So why did we do it, and what did we get from it?” In this case, monetary ROI was only tangential to the impact of his efforts. “We learned that aligning with certain types of clients even at a loss helped us acquire other clients that wanted to be associated with them and use the same principles as the ‘cool kids,’” says Panay. “The direct monetary ROI is irrelevant in this case as it helped make the sale on multiple clients further down the chain.” Keeping a bird’s eye view Focus isn’t everything. Marketers need to connect their analytical strategies to a bigger picture. “Managers should think beyond their silos and KPIs to company goals and which systems best track the full customer lifecycle, from awareness to subscription to product engagement to support,” explains Laura Smous, content strategy lead at The Resumator, a tool for recruiting and tracking applicants. Marketing and analytics teams need to act cross-functionally to pursue a unified vision. “Managers should think beyond their silos and KPIs to company goals and which systems best track the full customer lifecycle, from awareness to subscription to product engagement to support,” says Smous. Marketers need to investigate what they don’t know in addition to what they do. “The biggest breakdown for me is when visitors go from unknown to known,” says Smous. Tools and technology can help business leaders bridge this gap and trace the connection.”Track the full journey to becoming a customer,” emphasizes Smous. Connecting with individuals At the end of the day, marketing is about people. Automation may be efficient, but it is equally important for business leaders to balance their strategies with human-to-human connections. “Automated personalization doesn’t have the same kind of impact as person-to-person relationships,” says Panay. “However we find that the person-to-person has a much greater benefit to the bottom line, despite its inability to scale automatically.” Panay recommends diving deep into customer conversations. Position client-facing support teams at the front lines of this research process. Develop anecdotal reports for benchmarks and situations that aren’t measurable. “For example, a customer recently asked the best way to solve a problem that clearly Contactzilla couldn’t solve,” says Panay. “We responded with a step-by-step tutorial on how to achieve what they wanted with another product. They couldn’t believe it.” Saving time means prioritizing connections as the core of marketing. Quantitative or qualitative, these stories will drive actionable insights and growth.