Useful reporting is a way to get more “Yes’s” without (asking) so many of those annoying questions (or reduced margins).
So, you can stand out
If you are in a competitive marketplace, and these days who isn’t. You have stand out, market leaders traditionally use to rely on big budgets and/or a rich heritage or the impression they have both.
Did you know Aunt Bessie’s was original developed for Butlins Holiday Camps in the 1970’s and was then sold to public in UK supermarkets in the late 1990’s. Can you think whose Yorkshires you use to buy?
Don’t hinder sales
Things can go sideways without good reporting and the benchmarks it can give. But reporting which could give you the insight needed for more “yes’s”, can be a tussle. Think of it like baking a cake: Data is the raw ingredients, and the Report is the recipe. Yes, the ingredients and the recipe although important, it’s the look, the taste, the smell, after all customers just buy the Cake. But internal customers may be divided over the ingredients and the recipe, which can hinder cake sales.
Get in front of the right customers
When people buy products/services – they tend to come back and can often endorse them to others. And you are more likely to sell your “cake” if you put it in front of the right customers at the right time which is where good reporting come in.
At the right time
Depending on who you ask there are many steps in the buying process – for brevity here are 5 key steps in the sales journey up to the purchase:
- Awareness: The customer thinks they have a need or a want*
- Discovery: The customer research – fact finding stage
- Comparison: The customer looks for options to fulfil their need or want
- Shortlist: The customer “basket of consideration” stage where the create the list of possible sellers
- Purchase: The customers final stage where they check double check the price – which is where their focus (possible sellers) can change
Avoid reducing your margins
A vast majority of you time and resources is taken at stages 4 and 5 (you showcasing possible options, *often to time wasters – the want but not the need) and the vast majority of sales that occur at stage 5 (are you reducing your margin to get the sales). There is no avoiding Stage 5, but if your reporting could put you in front of customers at stages 1, 2 and 3 – you are an OG in the “basket of consideration”. Then other businesses are having fight to take your place.
Make better use of your resources
And here’s the rub some customers may even decide at stage 3 it’s you and skip straight to stage 5, and that could be 1 in 10, 1 in 20, 1 in 100 where you’re not in price war. And as the data grows you can see where and when stage 1 is happening. You can then change your timings, marketing, messaging, pricing etc saving you time. money, resources etc to become more appealing at the awareness stage.
Ok but how can reporting help? Reporting by its very nature is abstract, you are not in the moment. How many times have you been asked after the sale “where did you hear about us”, invariably there’s an unconscious bias in the responses which gives inaccurate insight. Remember the classic meme “Waited 30 min, no service” in the days when TV was king TV ads would often be planned around staffing rotas to avoid “disappointments”.
Avoid the Sales Funnel fallacy
The Sales Funnel is often an attempt to get better insight but increasingly its rooted in CRO (conversion rate optimisation) which is focused on the shopping journey (stages 4 and 5), there are mechanisms like ‘coupons/offers’ with unique identifiers which tell you the source (and campaign), but who doesn’t love a bargain.
Well good reporting could have told the restaurant to expect an influx of footfall diners and to get extra staff in.
We report differently
Reports to help impact and influence
We divide reporting into impact (it did make a difference) and influence (it could be a strong factor), a bit like the 1% club we focused on logic, pattern recognition, and common sense. As the reporting data builds and give a better picture of customers, activity was finessed – here are some examples:
Influence
Coffee shops – after refining their reporting we connected their activity to long and short range weather data. Based on the weather data the messaging users were exposed to or being sent changed, so on hot days the messaging focussed on iced drinks, if the next week was going to be cold messaging promoted warming drinks and snacks etc – often the messaging would not be offer led meaning that the in-store or POS incentives were used to increase add-ons, rather just a straight 25% off, Half Price headline (which reduces profit margins from the outset)
Impact
Health Spa – the mailing list was very thin, and users were reluctant to sign up (the clients preferred method) we built out reporting that highlighted peaks but without any apparent connection based on email suffix or post codes from bookings. We supported their trial of a Social Media campaign and through correct tagging and site data identified the exact locations when users booked from. From this we highlighted that apparently unconnected bookings were coming from a variety of a local city’s major employers. The health spa then contacted these organisations directly agreed “exclusive rates” and additional pick up “staff and supplier accommodation” business from these organisations.
That’s where our Reporting Transition service comes in.
If you have data but don’t have a massive team of researchers and data scientists or reporting is one of your many tasks (that stops, you doing the tasks that make money) then we can help you achieve reporting that can make a difference to your business.
We tailor our service to your budget to give you the insight numbers alone won’t.
The result: reporting that works the way your business needs it to.