All those numbers, facts and figures on the sales and marketing reports have a specific goal: To get the most out of your customer analytics. This assumes, of course, that your marketing analytics is based on actual, cumulative and projected data. Analytics can be a CMOs gold mine when the data is refined and utilized with vision and clarity. Here’s how you can make sense of your big data.

What Does Your Customer Analytics Reveal?

Marketing and sales professionals use the same basic processes most scientists use:

• Discovery
• Analysis
• Impact
• Implementation
• Results

Customer analytics can help you and your marketing team discover the buying habits and traits of each customer so products and services can be adapted to the all-important “customer need.” Analytics provide a profile of customers on an individual and conglomerate basis.

By analyzing each profile and comparing them collectively, the data contained will reveal a true picture of the relationship between buyer and seller. This picture also contains customer buying motivations and habits.

The impact analytics will have on your business depends on the value of the data. Data value should be judged in the same way as business assets. Assets no longer of value to the business become obsolete in the same way data contained in obsolete analytics loses value. It’s easy to see why customer analytics play an important role in maintaining solid customer relationships and a healthy bottom line for marketing and sales.

Comprehensive analysis of the customer base should be regularly monitored and reviewed. This helps root out flaws in data and helps improve projected statistical and strategic marketing plans. The next phase that can maximize analytics is implementation.

If, for example, your analytics show a “hole” in certain marketing numbers for specific products, compare new data to existing data to discover the point of change. This will help refine your marketing strategy for each customer. These analytics are also useful for creating customization within each segment of your marketing territory. The data may show there is a need for product development within your marketing region due to a wave of new businesses or growth in population.

The results businesses can expect to see from customizing their relationships with their customers depends on the intensity of effort expended and the craftsmanship of data mining, strategies, comparative analysis and direct business to customer interaction.

Your Customers, Your Analytics

There is no doubt that a certain level of interaction takes places between the you and your customers. The common denominator is the quality and value of the analytics that has been studied and interpreted. To get the most from your analytics, be aware of customer need as the first priority. There are always customers who require “kid gloves” to capture their attention or close a sale.

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In your analytics, these should be redlined so that marketing techniques can be custom fitted to their needs. How well your analytics define your customers depends on how conclusive the data within the analytics has been from the past to the present. If customer behavior has changed over a large period of time, you may need to study the specific point where changes first became evident. It’s always easier to satisfy one customer than it is to try and redesign your products and/or services for one hundred dissatisfied customers.

Give a Little to Get a Lot

If your customer analytics prove anything, it is that business have to give a little TLC to their customers to get a lot more of their buying power. Think of your analytics as a guide to how to create long term customer relationships that are reliable. Many CMOs choose to use their analytics as a template that provides inspiration and ideas for a more refined structure of marketing and sales.

While TLC generally means “tender, loving care,” for CMOs, it can mean “Treat Loyal Customers,” a reminder to offer special attention when it is warranted to certain customers. The rewards for treating loyal customers to a discount results in an increase in word-of-mouth advertising.

It may also be a reminder that customer analytics is a helpful tool to address marketing deficits that can easily be ameliorated by temporarily altering marketing plans. If analytics show that a segment of the customer based has become weakened, compensate this base with a show of good will. There are many examples of good will between buyer and seller. These can include discounts for a specified period of time or offering a reward for customer referrals.

Customer Analytics in Practice

With excellent quality data gathered, analyzed and implemented, putting analytics in practice shows how to get the most out of your customers and your customer analytics.