The Incredible Importance Of Customer Data To Businesses
Customer Data
Better targeting results from better data. This enables local businesses to achieve higher conversion rates, lower costs, and a greater ROI. As adoption increases, the cost of technology decreases, and the price of data will also drop as it becomes more insightful, accurate and cheaper. Data growth is being driven by the Internet of Things, and the estimate is by 2020, over 50 billion devices will be connected. The volume and type of data collection appears unlimited.
Offline Behavior
Online behavior can be used to predict online actions. Offline behavior predictions have previously relied on mobile device locations, but due to IoT devices, there is a lot more diversity. Understanding behavior, actions and choices enable better online predictions than page views, search histories and clicks.
Facebook
The search functionality of Facebook was bad in 2015, but they became a good local search player. They now use richer business profiles, better indexing and location information for their search results. The biggest difference is because Facebook started incorporating vast amounts of personal data into their search results. This provided insights into tastes, preferences, beliefs, hobbies and personal behavior.
SEO Ranking Factors
SEO does not work in the one-size-fits all philosophy. The ranking factors need to be analyzed based on the specific characteristics of the business. Even though the statistics claim placing images in content provides a better performance, studies have revealed the top ranking financial products and services websites have forty percent less images than what is traditional. The highest-ranking websites for travel required an additional three seconds to load than the average, but the users waited because the content was right. Customization must be applied to keyword frequency and ranking factors for search results to be customized based on relevance and content.
Local Search Audiences
Despite e-commerce, the belief is most shopping occurs locally. Data has been released showing consumers shop near home for frequent purchases including working out, groceries, gas and eating out. The average distance by car is two or three miles from home. For less frequent needs such as auto repair or clothing, most consumers will travel twenty minutes by car. Urban consumers travel even shorter distances, and they represent 83 percent of all consumers.
Google Images
Google image searches are used more than a combination of the top ten properties. This is nearly a third of the searches for Google-branded products. Businesses must optimize the images used for searches by their websites, or miss opportunities. Google can index images and graphics better with optimized descriptors, tags, data and image labels. Some factors regarding images include load speed, quality, context, viewability, general appeal and authenticity.
Brand Engagement
Most consumer brand engagement is local through search results and web pages. Location data is being used by half the brands to target consumers. More money is being spent for location-based marketing, and it is expected to increase. This is due to studies revealing the return for local investing.
Location Marketing
Many brands are not prominently featured in the search results, and their rankings were poor. Consumers use mobile devices to find local businesses, and when a business does not appear, their existence no longer matters. Businesses fell short because they listed the credentials for national corporations instead of locally. This shows errors in the local marketing strategy, and it should be a priority.
Brand Reputation
The identity and reputation of a business is dependent on social media and reviews. One tweet can capture a consumer’s attention, and uphold the identity of a brand. These consumers make a united voice, and businesses must adapt their brand management.