Boost your consumer engagement with data

Big data is no longer just for large enterprises. The Harvard Business Review discovered "not only that small businesses benefited from the precision offered by customer data, but also that exposure to data encouraged owner-managers to share insights with employees and get them involved in companies’ competitive thinking"ⁱ.

Here are three crucial ways your business can leverage big data to expand your consumer base.

Use a website heatmap

A heatmap lets you discover which parts of your website consumers interact with the most, and understand their behaviour through site navigation patterns all at one glance. It does this by tracking visitor clicking and browsing behaviour, including information on how much time they spend on each part of your website. This way you can identify "hot spots", which garner the most clicks and time spent, and colder areas which attract fewer viewers.

The data can be used to identify where you should add the most important content, like CTAs that will drive conversion, and improve on less visited parts of your site. A website heatmap solution makes it easier to analyse data to drive consumer engagement on your website for higher ROI. Consider solutions like Crazy Egg that offers a free 30-day heatmap trial for your site.

Make marketing more personal

Rival IQ attributes Amazon's e-commerce success in part to their analysis of consumers' online behaviour. "Amazon.com mastered the science of not only tracking every customer’s onsite actions but using that data to personalise all of their experiences individually."ⁱⁱ That way, every time consumers visit the site, the homepage they see is already customised with products that might interest them, based on their previous searches and purchases.

Research shows that a user must be contacted 5-7 times before he/ she makes the decision to buy. As a small business, your budget might be much tighter, but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer customers a personalised experience.

Your business can also analyse response rates for varying emails, to determine the type of emails that best generates clicks for you.

The Singapore Business Times also suggests that SMEs use data to remove offerings and communication touchpoints that are ineffective. This way, your business is focused only on the effective methods of reaching out to consumers, and can thus "witness richer customer engagement and higher rates of customer satisfaction."ⁱⁱⁱ

Optimise your social platforms

Don't be afraid to leverage on analytics tools to track how your social media platforms are performing. Relook at your audience profile to widen your consumer base, and look into performance metrics to see what content and visuals best drive customer engagement. Consider also interest or competitor-based targeting on your social media posts to increase your post relevancy.