Holistic Solutions: Analyzing Data, Expertise and Feedback for Custom Results
For a lot of us out there, the fiscal year is at a close and we are left with a sea of data that flooded in over 2017. Hopefully, we’ve been utilizing the information over the year, pinpointing trends as they occur and identifying strategies for change as they became necessary. If we haven’t done so already, now is a great time to take a step back and look at the information we’ve gathered and explore global trends that will help us strategize for the year to come.
At the Recon GRP, not only are we busy with our internal data sets, trends, successes and opportunities, but we are in a unique position to utilize our eCommerce platform to delve into the corporate marketing data sets of our clients. We understand that analyzing data in the midst of everything on the new year checklist is a low priority item – it’s daunting, it’s difficult and sometimes the utility is simply not acknowledged. Not only does our Technology and Business team sit at an integral vantage point to our clients’ quantitative eCommerce data (what sold, what didn’t, program success, etc.,), our Brand Management team has the qualitative insight to help make sense of the numbers and offer expert advice for moving the clients’ presence forward in the marketing and branding space.
Numbers aren’t always going to be enough, and expert advice in and of itself may not be the best tool to predict trends for the new year. However, a holistic and variable approach gives our clients the best solutions for success and innovative ideas for expanding their brand identity and industry presence.
Over the past month, our team has been focusing on the following areas of analysis for our customers with Key Performance Indicators in our data sets and advice from subject matter experts to identify successful programs for the 2018 year.
1.eCommerce Goods Sales
After years of analyzing what sells and what doesn’t by the numbers, this year we are moving to a more integrated and detailed analysis of why SKUs move and why they don’t. Just because something isn’t flying of the shelf doesn’t necessarily mean that the consumer base doesn’t want it or isn’t interested, but there may be ‘barriers of entry’ that are deterring consumers from interacting with the products. For example, we found that some of our clients’ highest value items collected dust because the sheer size or assumed difficulty for assembly. After speaking with representatives, clients, and industry experts, we are finding that including more product details, instructions and assembly videos within the product will increase product understanding and increased conversion.
2. Customer Service
Operating a proprietary and in-house built solution for our clients’ eCommerce platforms means that we need to have constant and direct communication with the front-end users. For 95% of our clients, we manage all customer service tickets ranging from order cancellations to site feature inquiries. While this takes the burden off our clients, it gives our Technology and Business team direct insight to what features or processes are confusing or difficult for our broad consumer base. As a development team, it’s easy to get buried in the code and find a beautiful resolution that makes perfect sense in the coding realm, but sometimes isn’t the best solution for our users. If we don’t get immediate feedback from our client administrators, the customer service data helps us identify points of confusion, route the feature back to our development team and find a better user interface that is more fluid for our user-based interactions.
3. Client Marketing Programs
Not only do we manage our marketing analytics, we also release and mange marketing campaigns for our clients to promote new items.This one might be the most complex of our analytic endeavors because we combine data from email campaigns, site interactions, targeted products sales, and customer service feedback to identify successes and challenges of each campaign.Like discussed above, we have moved from questioning what the outcome was, but to why.One of our major takeaways from the marketing analysis has been that targeted campaigns integrated with increased internal awareness about a campaign contribute to more success in guiding users to the product page and gaining sales conversions.Campaigns that are too broad and lack context for the consumer base are less successful, and the percentage of conversion tends to be lower.
This is just the tip of analytical iceberg that Recon takes on annually, quarterly, monthly and a rolling basis.We work through the numbers, talk to our experts, meet with our clients and find the ultimate solutions that take local and global trends into consideration.The Recon GRP is lucky to have a passionate team that works closely to get our clients the information they need to make the best possible decisions for their corporate marketing programs.
