We are living in a GREAT TIME for small businesses! In this modern age of technology, information is like currency and there have 
never been more tools and resources available to help you grow your small to mid-sized business.
The never ending stream of data is why large corporations are spending millions of dollars on data and information; how to collect it, make sense of it, and make it profitable.
This information helps them drive their marketing cycle. This data allows them to measure the effectiveness of their promotions, website engagement and asses their customer’s satisfaction before, during, and after the buying process. W
ith the right tools and expert guidance, small and mid-sized businesses can use this same data to evaluate their marketing.
Data analysis can tell you what’s working and what’s isn’t, drive business operations and marketing adjustments, delivering better service to your customers.
When customers receive better service, your business is sure to grow!
1. Business Analytics Have Never Been More Plentiful
Big companies have the ability to collect and process large amounts of information. Despite this flood of data, big companies often move very slow and are not as agile as smaller ones. Its more difficult for them to change their products and services.
Small businesses on the other hand are more nimble and can quickly adjust to customer data and market trends.
As a result, small and mid-sized businesses have an opportunity right now more than ever to grow their business using analytics and at the same time strengthen and develop customer relationships as more consumers engage online.
2. The Ability To Understand What’s Working & What Isn’t
Many businesses may already have a well-designed website. Your website is like the vehicle of your business online. It drives your sales; moving your business forward depending on how well it is designed and structured.
The engine of this vehicle is how visitors get to your website. This may be through sources like search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, referrals from other websites, and even interactions on social media.
It takes constant management to maintain both your website and your increase website traffic. Your company must create content, send emails, create promotions and drive relationship-building activities that add value.
With each of these pieces in place, winning companies will set up strong business systems to analyze the things that are working well and which areas need improvement. For example:
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Who is your target audiences?
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What are your sources of customers?
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With what content do your customers engage with?
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How do your customers behave on your website?
A growing business connects the dots between these areas and identifies opportunities. With the proper business analysis, you can dive deeper and uncover opportunities to optimize your website and your marketing efforts.
3. The Ability To Make Informed Decisions & Adjustments
Let’s say you’re already driving a high number of users to your website, but it’s not creating new customers, new leads, or whatever your website objective may be. This is like owning a restaurant where thousands of people walk through your doors every day, but no one buys anything to eat!
If traffic doesn’t bring sales conversions, you need to make constant adjustments and realignments to drive the right traffic to your site.
Making adjustments is all about understanding your business data. As a basic example, if most the traffic that comes to your website seems to exit the website on the same page, it’s probably time to rethink that webpage.
This could include the content of the page, the page layout or even things such as the page load time or colors used.
On the other hand, if many of your visitors are engaging with a page more than other pages, you would want to understand why so you can know how to make more engaging pages and content for your users.
Over time, analyzing your business data will allow you to make incremental improvements to your website and optimize your marketing efforts. In business, knowing you are successful is good, but knowing why is even better.
What was often only available to companies with large technology budgets and the means necessary to act on such information is now available to small and mid-sized businesses as well.
With more and more customers connecting and engaging with small businesses online the opportunity to make fact-based, informed decisions is finally here.
