Boss Lady

Sales channels: 3 tips for retail to grow using channel insights

on

Starting your own business is equal parts exciting and challenging. But when 90% of new businesses are destined to fail, what can you do to make sure yours gets off to a good start? This is where insight from sales channels can be crucial.

Becoming successful in your business is what every business owner aspires to. There is nothing quite like bringing your idea to life and watching it become profitable as sales go up and your business begins to scale.

Yet, 60% of new businesses fail within the first three years, and one of the biggest reasons for failure is that businesses are not effectively harnessing business intelligence data that enables them to make the right decisions based on the current market.

What is business intelligence from sales channels?

Business intelligence is where a business collects data on the way consumers are engaging with their offering and then turning that data into meaningful information in the form of reporting, visualization, and querying. This data is then interpreted and allows a business to make informed decisions on where to focus begets and efforts.

Such examples of utilizing business intelligence are monitoring traffic on a website, tracking abandoned baskets at checkout, or monitoring inventory.

Utilizing insights from sales channels

Your sales channels are how you sell your products to customers and can offer some incredibly valuable insights into what isworking and where your business needs to improve. A sales channel is not to be confused with a distribution channel which is how a service is delivered to the client.

Let’s take a look at some of the different sales channels and dive into what tools can enable businesses to gather and use deep insights.

3 tips to use sales channel insights to grow your business

1. E-commerce integration

Your e-commerce platform is the front and center stage where your products are showcased and where all the subtle actions of customers can be collected. Whether you operate in-store or through multiple digital sales channels, it’s vital to be able to keep track of inventory and collect and use customer details in a compliant and efficient way.

By using tools like e-commerce integration platforms, you are able to take the manual labor out of such management and reduce human error when recording data and key information that enables your business to effectively operate.

Software like QuickBooks e-commerce integration tools allows you to automatically track and monitor inventory across multiple sales sites, reduce data entry errors and save valuable time where you would have been manually entering this data, and monitor the ways customers are shopping across multiple sites at any one time.

By having a better view of such business operations, both in-store and online, enables business owners to visualize the data all in one place and make more informed decisions about growing the business.

2. Direct marketing sales channels

Direct marketing sales channels include activities where your business directly reaches out to clients. This could encompass door to door sales telephone marketing, direct mail, and email marketing.

While it can be difficult to track online and offline marketing, there are a variety of tools that enable you to track digital marketing efforts and gather insights on what is and is notworking. Platforms like Dot Digital enable you to send out direct mail to client data and then track which geographies are most engaging with this activity, what accounts are most engaged and other key metrics such as click through rates, popular content and which web pages that are navigated through to.

In addition, tools like HubSpot; a marketing automation platform, enables businesses to generate leads, close deals and create valuable customer experiences. By being able to monitor inbound marketing activity, businesses can work out what is bringing in the most ROI and focus their efforts there while aligning budgets accordingly.

3. Getting to know your customers

By using valuable insights to learn about consumer behavior and the way they are interacting with your business, you cangradually build out accurate customer personas. These personas will enable your business to predict what types of people you are doing business with and identify what makes them tick, what they are most likely to buy and how, and what their pain points are.

This information is like gold dust in the business world, enabling you to build out a specific set of interactive experiences that nurture your customers through the sales funnel. Got customers dropping off before making a sale? No problem. Now that you’re tracking behavior and recording the data from your sales channels, you’ll easily be able to identify where the problem is and work out how you can close the gap in the sales process to ensure fewer clients filter out of your sales funnel.

 

About Business Woman Media

Our women don’t want to settle for anything but the best. They understand that success is a journey involving personal growth, savvy optimism and the tenacity to be the best. We believe in pragmatism, having fun, hard-work and sharing inspiration. LinkedIn

Recommended for you

error: Content is protected !!