Originally Posted March 2018. Updated January 2022.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

– Data review is the secret to advancing your growing business.
– Scheduling weekly data reviews is crucial to developing an agile marketing strategy that converts.
– A  data review process can be broken down into a few simple steps.

Businesses who are hoping to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace, control costs, and make more direct connections with their customers can do so by making good use of the data collected by their website, social media, advertising channels, and POS system. Collecting it isn’t enough! You need to add data analysis to your maintenance rotation.

Step One:

Take Inventory of Your Channels and Current Data Capture

You want to be sure that all of your systems are collecting data the way they’re supposed to. You’ll know what type of activity has happened in your business over the course of the previous week. Your data should reflect associated activity – for example, if you’ve been running a promotion of your Brand X merchandise, you should see more traffic going to the category and product pages for Brand X on your website. If the data differs wildly from expectation, or worse, you show no activity at all from a channel, it’s a good idea to check and make sure your configuration is still correct and no one has accidentally turned your reporting systems off.

Step Two: 

Outline Your Questions

There are some questions business owners want the answer to all of the time – where is my traffic coming from? What’s stopping visitors from converting? There are also questions that apply only at certain times, such as: what’s the impact of the sponsored Instagram post I just ran? Each week, prepare the list of questions you want answers to, so you know what you want to learn while reviewing your data. Try to think in terms of objective data as well as observational data so you can paint a complete picture of your customers’ behavior and needs.

Step Four:

Identify Action Steps

Your data review may reveal problems that need to be addressed or opportunities that should be capitalized on. Every data review should yield at least one actionable insight. Capture these and make a plan to use these insights to improve your business. Some actions may be minor, immediate items, such as fixing dead links or changing a social media ad, while others will require a more involved solution.

Featured Videos Tutorials to Facilitate Your Data Review:

Step Five:

Repeat

After another week has elapsed, it’s time to sit down with your data and go through the review process again. The steps remain the same: make sure your data capture is working properly, prepare questions, review reports and customer profiles, and identify action steps. The more time you spend with your data, the more natural and intuitive the process becomes. You’ll also become more adept at identifying trends and opportunities as they emerge, allowing you to give customers exactly what they want – even before they know they want it.

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Become a Data Analysis Pro!

Soon, data analysis will be second nature to you. But to get yourself in a data review routine, here are a few on-demand sessions that will bring you up to speed on the basics, plus what to do with your findings. Want an expert set of eyes on your data instead? Work with a marketing mentor!