In my last post, I revealed how Predictive Analytics can be used to predict customer behavior in the same way that a great recipe can predict a delectable meal.
Just as a well-thought out recipe can predict mouth-watering culinary creations (I’m currently on an Italian kick!), a well-thought out, data-driven marketing plan can be used to increase your company’s revenue and significantly decrease marketing costs.
Here’s how:
Find Out Exactly What Your Customers Want (without asking them!)
By using Predictive Analytics, you can find out exactly what your customers want simply by looking at their data-based behavior.
Predictive Analytics uses data to determine why customers do what they do, when they are most likely to make a purchase, and how you can position your company to fulfill their ever-changing needs.
If you can accurately predict what your customers want, you won’t waste time or money guessing. You will only invest in marketing strategies that promise predictable outcomes, and in turn, drastically increase revenue and slash marketing costs.
Streamline Your Email Marketing
Predictive Analytics can reduce marketing costs both online and offline.
Take email marketing, for example. Many companies waste time, energy, and precious resources on email campaigns that don’t work.
Why don’t they work?
Because the email strategies being used are not based on data.
Effective, strategic email campaigns use past customer behavior to predict future outcomes.
By analyzing how a customer has responded to your past email campaigns, you can create follow-up sequences specifically tailored to their purchasing behavior.
You can also cut marketing costs and increase engagement by segmenting email lists and only emailing those customers most likely to respond to a particular campaign.
Decrease Direct Mail Costs
Many companies practice a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality when it comes to direct response marketing. If you have a direct mail budget and a mailing list, you may be tempted to send mailings to everyone on that list every single time.
Stop!
By using Predictive Analytics, you can accurately predict which customer segments will be most likely to respond to mailings, and skip those least likely to buy based on this marketing method.
Not only will you use a drastic reduction in the cost of direct mailings; you’ll be able to refocus your energies on marketing strategies that do resonate with each specific customer segment.
You don’t need every single ingredient in your refrigerator to make mouth-watering minestrone, so why waste precious dollars marketing to every single customer in your database?
With Predictive Analytics, you can simultaneously increase revenue and decrease marketing costs by accurately predicting exactly what your customers want, when they want it. Instead of wasting money marketing to every customer every time, you’ll be able to create offers for segments that are ready to buy right now.
And the only thing more delicious than a perfectly primed customer is a piping hot bowl of Italian wedding soup, or maybe my homemade Tiramisu.
Bonnie Massa
Bonnie Massa is Founder and President of Chicago-based Massa & Company, Inc. She works with companies and nonprofits to make the best use of their information about customers, partners, donors and sponsors. With more than 40 years of experience in marketing and predictive analytics, Bonnie is passionate about helping clients make informed, data-driven decisions to increase the value of their customer base. She strongly believes that making pasta and ice cream from scratch are worth the effort, and she spends much of her free time testing and re-testing that theory.