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Being an innovative company doesn’t always mean that large scale technological developments need to take place. Sometimes, it’s merely looking inward and seeing what can be done to further delight customers, employees and also support revenue growth.
Further, there are a multitude of opportunities for businesses - both large and small - who take deep interest in the data they’re collecting relative to all of their efforts within product, sales, marketing, and customer success. To be more specific, here are some key examples of important data points:
- Understanding which social media posts drive the highest engagement.
- Knowing key trigger points that drive conversions with your website.
- Being aligned with your customers’ buying journey to further provide value that can build loyalty and generate new sales.
- Utilizing email segmentation to ensure you are providing a sense of personalization to your customers.
Why create a data-driven culture?
According to MIT, “More and more companies realize the power of data to inform business decisions, predict customer behaviors, and drive transformative technologies like machine learning and predictive analytics.”
Infusing a data-driven culture helps instill an innate way of thinking and implementing processes to ensure the success of your company as well as your employees. Having a data-driven culture also empowers employees to be more collaborative with their efforts to achieve collective goals.
Know that when you encourage collaboration, you create an atmosphere that allows your employees to share ideas. When everyone has the chance to give their input, you can make more comprehensive decisions. Your employees will be more motivated to do their best work and share their personal knowledge, which creates a company culture in which everyone is inspired to learn from each other.
Here’s how small businesses can create a data-driven culture
Once you lay out the requirements for ‘how’ the data you collect will be used to boost the overall success of your small business, you can then continually make improvements and iterate where needed.
Lead by example
As a small business owner, know that you must lead by example with the expectations you put in place. From there, leverage data to support your decision making. Be your own catalyst and get into the practice of showing rather than just telling. This will empower your employees and teams to do the same. In fact, companies are 77% more likely to have significantly exceeded their business goals when the CEO leads and champions the importance of data.
Promote clarity and transparency
Ensuring that everyone is on the same page especially with how the data is pulled and presented will instill a sense of clarity as well as transparency. After all, transparency is about being able to see through something - it is clear on both sides. Both customers and employees are trusting you to provide them with honest information; trust customers to handle the truth. Telling the truth is also a part of BBB’s Standards of Accreditation that BBB Accredited Businesses must meet.
Identify the core metrics that will be used
Alignment among your entire business means that you all know what specific metrics will be tracked to glean insight and help with decision making. Doing so will help you understand historical data, trends/patterns, and provide a framework to predict future successes.
Here are some examples of core metrics to consider:
- Management metrics include employee satisfaction through surveys, productivity, revenue per employee, and operational efficiency.
- Marketing metrics include website leads, website visits, social media engagement rate, email open rate, and revenue per site visit.
- Sales metrics include average sale/contract size, recurring revenue, net profit, and sales cycle.
Make room for creativity
Your employees should feel empowered to bring fresh ideas and executions to the table, so long as they are tracking the performance of these initiatives with data. For example, an employee might have some ideas to help drive upsells, make room to test out these ideas, track and measure everything, and then decide what worked as well as what didn’t.
Communicate often and openly
Know that the data you collect will encompass everything from your customers to your employees. Each bucket comes with their own set of standards and requirements. Making sure that you communicate the differences of each while also holding both equally important will push your business forward.
Pick the right tools to help
From business intelligence to data visualization, tools help you digest raw data and make sense of where the current gaps may exist within your small business. Your tools as well as the data you collect are only as good as the people who use it. Make sure that you are leveraging tools that will allow you to make informed decisions with the data you’re collecting.
Get more tips from the BBB
Running a data-driven small business is an exciting way to track all of your efforts and understand the overall ROI they yield. Having the right resources and tools in place can help your business thrive.
For more tips, check out the BBB business news feed and the BizHQ.