To take full advantage of these robust data streams and mine them for the most accurate and up-to-date insights they can offer, companies need to establish real-time data analytics strategies. In addition to enhancing personalization efforts and improving the overall customer experience, real-time data can help boost business agility, improve campaign performance, increase operational efficiency, and enhance customer understanding. All of these benefits are now necessities — not just nice-to-haves — for businesses hoping to engage customers effectively and grow.
The Power of Real-Time Data
58% of business leaders around the world say they’ve seen marked increases in customer retention as a result of real-time data analytics. -Harvard Business Review Analytic Services
How Real-Time Data Can Boost Business Success
1. Create High-Converting Customer Profiles
Investing in a real-time data and insights strategy can help you increase conversions and boost your bottom line by improving your customer profiles. When a customer data platform (CDP) integrates with real-time data, segments update automatically with every new behavior and action. This pulls in prospects in real time, creating the highly targeted buying personas that lead to paying customers.
2. Improve Campaign Performance
Having instant access to data means you can make informed adjustments to in-flight marketing campaigns based on consumer actions. Rather than wait for batched data that may be outdated by the time its delivered, you’ll know immediately what’s working and what’s not. This allows you to change course if you need to make improvements or brainstorm ways to further optimize performance and build on a campaign’s momentum.
3. Enhance Business Efficiency
Traditional data reporting is tedious work that takes a great deal of time and effort. In addition to delivering information quickly, real-time data management programs provide insights that are condensed and ready to analyze. The more your business can rely on these programs to translate raw data into actionable insights instantly, the less manual data reporting your employees will have to do on their own. In addition, most real-time data platforms allow you to create customizable dashboards that are shareable across teams, so there’s no limitation or delay in who can access important marketing insights.
4. Connect With Customers Across Touchpoints
Today’s consumers expect personalized shopping experiences that allow them to move seamlessly from one channel to another. This is especially true in our post-pandemic world, where hybrid services like curbside pickup and buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) have become the norm. For retailers in particular, this makes real-time, cross-channel data imperative for effective customer service. In order to engage with consumers effectively at their preferred touchpoints, brands must be able to track their changing contexts 24/7. This requires cross-channel data that’s immediately processed and served, rather than stored in a database for analysis at a later date.
By 2025, each connected person in the world will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds.
–International Data Corporation
5. Easily Track Competitiors
Real-time data can also help you keep a closer eye on the competition. Alerts can be set to notify your teams when competitors adjust store hours, lower prices, launch new promotions, and make other kinds of strategic and operational changes. Receiving this information in real time allows you to pivot your own strategies swiftly and accordingly so you can continuously evolve your business and take optimum advantage of changing trends.