Data Segmentation for Business Intelligence: The Endless Stories Behind the Numbers
Any data made available to a business has the potential to bear some of the most lucrative fruit you could ever imagine.
Whether it's marketing-related numbers such as buying trends or business-centric calculations such as a client's payment frequency, the data tells endless stories. When you take these results and break them down into specific segments, you'll find unique micro-trends that your business can leverage to the highest degree.
The advantages are endless, depending on the nature of segmentation and what the information tells you.
Businesses who've been successful with data segmentation have found that, generally, efficiency increases, clients or customers are more satisfied with the customer segmentation, and revenue reaches new heights.
We know you may be salivating at the power of deep-dive data segmentation. However, there are the glaring realities that come with embarking upon such an initiative.
Namely, you must know precisely how to assess the various segments and correctly grasp what the numbers indicate. Then, even if you understand what the carefully categorized information means, there's still the matter of building and executing a strategy based on the results of data segmentation.
Of course, expert analysis and keen attention to detail will help dictate how to take action on these various unique trends. Though success in this realm also necessitates utilizing the correct tools and software. Doing so will streamline the process and present segmented data to make patterns more apparent in terms of market segmentation.
Read below as we discuss in-depth how data segmentation can help take your business up a notch.
Learning from Netflix; The Segmentation Sharpshooter
Before we investigate other examples of effective data segmentation and network segmentation, it's critical to learn from the masters who came before us. This brings us to Netflix.
Now, if you're going to wipe video rental chains off the face of the earth, you're probably winning at the numbers game. Netflix only reaffirms that notion.
See, the video content-streaming powerhouse takes segmentation to a level that's so specified that segments' segments have their segment. We think that sentence makes sense.
Netflix has over 76,000 genres that categorize its movie and tv show database. The streaming kingpin has broken down its impressive arsenal of genres into an even more diverse array of micro-genres.
The specificities and granular nature of these micro-genres are jaw-dropping. The company has thought of every possible kind of customer and movie in segmenting its product offerings. For instance, there's a segment as esoteric as "Asian_English_Moth-Son-Love_1980."
We'd understand if you looked at that and thought to yourself, "why?"
At first glance, it seems over the top. But then you look at the results and realize there's a reason that Netflix has the best recommendation algorithm. The company once offered $1,000,000 to any team that could top its movie suggestion technology.
It is also a great marketing strategy of its own accord because they are telling their competition that they have all the power they need thanks to the customer data and their systems in advance segmentation and demographic segmentation as they can offer selections based on the users' demographic data.
Why Does Segmentation Make Such a Difference?
Okay, we know that Netflix – in today's landscape – is almost as much of a world superpower as the USA or China, much to the customer satisfaction they experience thanks to that.
Still, how does one assess the nitty-gritty of their segmentation strategy? Why does it make that much of a difference?
For one, big data tools and technologies have offered marketers premiere analytics software. This state-of-the-art technology accurately identifies the right customer with minimal spending, which gives them time to tailor a marketing campaign that will hit the nail on the head.
In short, they get an insight into the buyer persona of a specific user and their consumer behavior and customer profiles for their target group, which eventually helps them create ad campaigns and other marketing efforts for meaningful groups.
Though, we need to investigate what segmentation is at its core. In a nutshell, it groups customers that share traits and attributes, from biases and preferences to demographic features and socio-economic behavior.
In a marketing sense, segmentation applies to both customers and products. And it allows companies to maximize the efficiency of their budgets while leveraging increased consumer awareness, thanks to the segmentation model they use. Plus, it will enable them to prepare for the surging levels of competition by targeting their products to the most viable demographics, especially in social media.
Furthermore, segmentation aids businesses in deciding on the right channels in which to market. Plus, the method supports these businesses in marketing at the most opportunistic times for their demographic.
At this point, we're still only discussing part of the story with segmentation. Yes, a company like Netflix shows how critical this discipline is to marketing. Yet segmentation can also have a significantly positive impact on other business operations.
Data Segmentations in Business Intelligence
Let's look at a couple of hypothetical examples of how proficient data segmentation can be a boon to various procedures throughout an organization.
Let's start with a financial department scenario. Your company could potentially come across a metric that tells you the average amount of time it takes for a customer to pay their invoice.
The first layer of data will tell you an overall average, and that comes with some information. Alternatively, going many steps further with the data could convey a notable difference in payment times depending on the customer's business size, location, or time of year they use your product/service, etc.
With this micro-level data, it becomes possible to pre-emptively reach out to the segments of customers who take a longer time to pay.
Secondly, if your business is help desk-based, the initial data layer will show the average time it takes to close tickets. Diving deeper into the data might assess the metric by the customer, time of the month, problem area, or any other factor.
Segmentation will help your business identify one specific problem area or a subset of customers dragging out ticket times. From there, it's possible to strategize around the problem appropriately and bolster overall call efficiency.
DashboardFox Brings Your Data to Life
Just like marketing-based segmentation requires the appropriate tools, so does business intelligence-based segmentation.
DashboardFox provides a business intelligence platform that allows you to connect to real-time data, easily convert it to useable information, key performance metrics, and trends charts, and then overlay a set of data segmentation filters to help see the big picture.
But unlike the leading BI tools in the industry, with DashboardFox you don’t have to pay an arm and leg for the technology. DashboardFox has a unique one-time license cost (unlike the subscription fees that almost everyone else charges).
Plus, as a small, bootstrapped, organization, DashboardFox provides the personal touch when it comes to support. In addition to product support, our team of experts can help you fully leverage the benefits of data reporting and dashboards both promptly and cost-effectively.
Want to know more? Reach out to our team via our contact page, or request a live demo with one of our technical experts and let’s see how DashboardFox can help you delve into your data to gain valuable insights (and save money in the process).