Seven Ways to Use Predictive Analytics for Marketing and Sales Success

What is the secret to business growth? While branding and products play a role, the way you market your products/services can make or break your business. This is irrespective of whether you are a retailer or a business service provider. 

An effective marketing strategy revolves around your audience’s needs. 

In a digital age, where changes occur every hour, you need to stay abreast of the current as well as future trends of your target market. While analyzing current needs is not a difficult job, the future part is where businesses lose the edge. The resultant loss of market share brings them back to square one. 

In a data-driven era, the only way to save yourself from falling in such a situation is to leverage predictive analytics. It is a technique that uses data and advanced analytic tools like machine learning and AI to predict future trends. 

Unfortunately, only 23% of businesses are utilizing it, while the remaining are either contemplating or have no plans to use this technology. 

Clearly, many are unaware of the benefits of predictive analytics for marketing because they don’t know where and how to employ it, to take advantage of it. 

Here are some ways to use predictive analytics to boost marketing and sales. 

Optimize Marketing Campaigns

Simply because two people need a specific product or service, doesn’t mean the whole world will appreciate it. Be it when entering a new market or diversifying your marketing strategy, basing it on assumptions of what your target needs or merely a product idea will lead to failure. 

Having enough data or evidence to back your strategy helps you drive it in the right direction. 

Predictive analytics scrutinizes historical data and the audience’s behavior, providing you with a deeper understanding of market segments as well as your target market’s needs. This helps you optimize your marketing efforts and gain maximum ROI from it. 

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2.Gear Up the Sales Process

You need to speak the right words to the right people to boost lead generation and sales. With predictive analytics for sales, you gain insights into your target audience’s needs, changing behaviors, and pain points. 

Using this, you can perform a targeted marketing campaign in alignment with your sales goals, resulting in quality leads. Harnessing the information on hand, you can then drive conversations to quicken the process of converting leads into customers.

3.Save Costs of Customer Acquisition

A fully optimized marketing strategy leads to generating high-quality leads and a faster-moving sales process. This in turn results in reduced costs of customer acquisition. 

However, to achieve this, you need precise target profiles in place as it enables you to provide the right solutions to the right people. Without it the entire exercise is a failure. 

Using analytics you can dig into existing customers’ data and also keep a tab on changing trends. This helps you have near-to-accurate customer profiles that have a high chance of conversion, saving you from both losses of potential customers and high costs of acquisition. 

4.Gain Customer Loyalty

Every brand wants to win the trust and loyalty of their customers. The only possible way to achieve this is to keep them engaged and keep them wanting more of your brand. This requires a powerful upselling or cross-selling strategy that ensures a lasting customer relationship. 

Tools like SAP analytics cloud provide futuristic insights about your customer’s needs. It allows you to understand what works well for which segment of your target market. This helps you design marketing plans in accordance with customer’s needs.

When you provide them with the exact solution they need, it helps you strengthen your bond and gain their loyalty. 

5.Power Outbound Marketing Efforts

If you’ve executed a bulk email campaign to attract potential customers, it might have not worked at certain times. The lower conversion rate results in loss – both, in terms of time and money, invested. 

But, if you have data to tell you what has worked in the past and with whom, it gives direction to your plan, which has high chances to succeed. Predictive analytics provides this information. The insight allows you to create campaigns specific to prospects that are likely to convert. 

6.Create Precise Buyer Personas

Effective marketing campaigns start with a detailed buyer persona. Understanding your audience’s demographics, needs, behaviors, etc. is crucial to create a plan that is most likely to succeed. 

Predictive analytics for marketing uses advanced analytics to source information on potential customers. It analyzes their past behavior and gives you deeper insight into your customer’s mindset. This helps you create a buyer persona on the basis of which you can craft targeted marketing campaigns. 

The narrowed down approach increases your chances of getting better returns on your investment. 

7.Approach Potential Customers Effectively

Long gone are the days of hard selling. Plus, simply offering a low price is not enough. Nowadays, it is crucial to put across the offer in the right way at and at the right time. Else, you lose brand credibility as well as potential customers. 

With SAP analytics cloud by your side, you not only narrow your focus by targeting the right audience. But, you also know how to approach them, what to tell them, and when. This enables your sales team to craft a pitch that hits the exact spot and improves chances of conversion. 

It also helps in extending your reach, acquiring new customers as well as in re-converting existing ones when needed. 

Final Words

If you’re not using predictive analytics for sales or marketing purposes, you now know what you’re missing out on.

SAP analytics cloud brings forth business intelligence by connecting people to information in real-time. This facilitates innovation, better customer relationships, and business growth. If you have not made the shift, it’s time you do. 

Connect with us and we’ll help you embed analytics into your business and reap benefits.