Data has become a hot commodity in recent years, with companies trying new techniques to make better decisions. The exciting news is that well-utilized data has the ability to transform business operations, with recent reports suggesting approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced every day.
Successful companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google use data visualization in their marketing to attract a vast network of consumers—affirming that the collection of relevant customer data may well be both essential and critical to the success of modern businesses.
Even though data collection has become commonplace among the daily operations of most companies, a hurdle still remains regarding how best to visualize information and generate insights.
Converting collected data into an asset that decision makers can understand is a challenging task. Here we’ll discuss ways that data visualization can be used to enable business leaders to comprehend essential insights and use the resulting information effectively.
What is data visualization?
Data, by nature, is unrefined. It can be bulky and often displayed in a raw format that’s not easily read or understood. When data is presented this way, it’s difficult to utilize effectively, so the most reasonable way forward is to break things down into a simpler format.
Data visualization refers to the process of transforming raw data into a new format that’s easy to read and comprehend. This process can be used to compare auto insurance rates or track customer engagement, the key is that data visualization makes information more digestible.
The human brain is not naturally designed to process large amounts of data. Consider how disorganized a data spreadsheet with multiple columns and metrics feels. Most people would struggle to visualize data in this format manually.
When tailoring your marketing strategy, relevant data must be perfectly understood. The information at your disposal should guide you in making informed marketing decisions. The marketing strategy deployed in your business can affect all aspects of your operations. In essence, all eyes will be directed towards the marketing decisions that you make!
So, why is data visualization essential in business marketing? This question requires a detailed interpretation to be fully understood. In this article, we’ll elaborate further as to why business owners should consider utilizing data visualization in an effective marketing strategy.
1. Generating sharable content
White papers, infographics, and custom or stock images are all significant elements of any marketing strategy. Data can be incorporated from recent market research in an infographic to help target audiences understand the realistic nature of the market. This strategy looks beyond typical clients and publicly available figures that can also be used by other businesses. In return, your company will be positioned to appear as an authoritative industry leader.
When attempting to make your brand unique, you should focus on tailoring content closely related to your services. For instance, an automation product supplier may need to generate infographics showcasing how automation can increase productivity. Whilst mortgage brokers may wish to tailor content around the most popular neighborhoods in their operational area.
The goal is to ensure that the content you generate adds value to your business and can be used by potential customers to make informed decisions. Essentially, you’ll need to convince consumers that you are the best available service provider and should be chosen above all others.
2. Impress prospects using statistics
Data storytelling is a proven strategy that can be implemented to hook and create leads. Once this strategy is put into action, marketers may be surprised about the amount of information that can be generated and used to improve engagement. However, time must be taken to ensure only relevant data statistics are utilized to avoid any chance of misleading audiences.
Market research can be conducted to evaluate which services and products are most engaging to your audience. For example, if you realize that most of your consumers are millennials, you may wish to tailor your marketing strategy to better suit this demographic. Additionally, marketers can choose to conduct post-purchase-point surveys to gauge customer experiences.
If you realize that customer satisfaction levels are high, this information can be used in advertised statistics to add weight to your claims. You should also be constantly looking to evaluate different ways to answer and speak to your customer’s pain points. Making use of a strategy like this can lead to greater opportunities and a larger share of the market.
3. Use dynamic and static charts to display data
There are numerous plugins for WordPress websites that can help to add data visualization to websites in a quick and easy fashion. Chartify is one such option. Using this service allows marketers to create in-depth and detailed:
Chartify is simple to use and designed to give business analysts, stock marketers, website owners and many more professionals a reliable method of data visualization.
Another option is the Chart builder plugin where data can be displayed as either a static or dynamic chart. Static charts require relevant data sets to be fed into the plugin manually and in return the program will display its findings. Dynamic charts can be connected to a query with the information gleaned from this process displayed clearly in the plugin.
Chartify is essentially a WordPress alternative to Google Charts, which can be integrated with Google Sheets to display the data within any relevant file as an easily readable chart or graph.
4. Make business websites more dynamic
Your business website should be the face of your operations, so it must stand out from the crowd and clearly display your brand image. Data visualization can differentiate your website from the competition by using clear visuals to break down walls of text and display important information that can be easily understood by visitors.
At some point, you may choose to illustrate different forms of statistics using a funny image to capture each visitor’s attention. Alternatively, you may choose to use a scatter map to showcase the areas where your most frequent customers are based to illustrate how broad your audience reach is and that you intend to capitalize on every corner of the market to grow your brand.
In addition, you can choose to publish visuals that elaborate on the high-quality and value of your products or create infographics with figures that are essential to your business and your general industry. By using these features, your website will stand out from the crowd, and you may see audience retention and engagement figures climb.
5. Develop a better understanding of your customers
Customers are the key to your business. Before tailoring your marketing strategies, you must understand who your target customers are. Remember that every move in your marketing strategy will be designed to engage these people, so you’ll need to identify the most effective areas where you can find leads on different online platforms.
Data analytics can help you identify the best areas to target for enviable returns, whilst also ensuring that you have a better understanding of how prospects find you online. Once you understand all these aspects, you can use this information to tailor strategies that are dedicated to increasing your brand’s online visibility.
You’ll need to evaluate many different variables and demographics to ensure that you are targeting the right people. Sometimes, you may realize that you are targeting the wrong audience with the right energy. This can be damaging to your business if you are not careful about the strategies you are applying and where to apply them.
6. Improve decision-making processes
Decision-making affects every part of daily business operations. Every organization is responsible for making decisions that will propel their brand to the next level. The challenging part is that every decision you make should align with your brand’s goals, data visualization can help you accomplish exactly that!
Visualization offers an incredible way for businesses to collect insights from raw data and use this information to generate credible insights in the form of charts and graphs such as scatter plots, dot plots, and Sankey charts. Making use of raw data, however, is a complicated task that requires dedication and focus to ensure things run smoothly. Using an online proofing tool is a great way to keep everyone on the same page in terms of how relevant data is being visualized.
If you’re not invested in the right technology to utilize data visualization, you are likely to experience lots of challenges making sense of large amounts of data. If you instead involve data visualization in your operations, data insights can be easily generated and used when making prudent development decisions for long-term marketing strategies.
Data visualization best practices
As with any important business process, to appropriately apply data visualization to your marketing strategy a number of best practices should be followed and observed, including:
Final words
The human brain can process visual content 60,000 times faster than text-based content. By involving data visualization in your business marketing activities, you can better position yourself to create effective marketing campaigns. When developing these methods, you should have a trusted backup system that will help you to generate good returns and engagement.
It’s evident that data visualization has an integral role to play in general marketing activities. However, you need to take time and understand how to use visualization to generate a positive response to your business operations. Considering the hacks shared above, data visualization can be a necessary tool for those seeking to create a successful marketing strategy!
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