Think about how much data the typical business collects (or has the potential to collect) every day.
Sometimes, data that may seem perfectly mundane may have atypical uses that can take your business operations to the next level. For example, suppose you have a social media advertising team responsible for placing ads on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Those platforms have powerful targeting algorithms to help brands place their ads in front of people who are most likely to be interested in the product or service on offer.
What if data collected by other departments or teams could help your social media advertising team target ads even more accurately?
Identify Where Collected Data Could Be Valuable
In the above example, suppose your social media ad team is careful to target ad placement based on an “ideal” customer persona based upon their age range, gender, educational level, marital status, and household income. That’s great, but you may be able to target the ideal customer persona even more accurately.
Your order processing team receives extensive data that could be helpful. Maybe they run a workflow report on the data they collect and discover that a handful of zip codes in the upper Midwest are responsible for a disproportionate number of orders. That could prompt your marketing team to find out why your products are so popular there, and could help your social media ad team develop ads that target this particular geographic region, further improving your marketing ROI.
Use Workflows to Route Shared Data Automatically
Sharing data does not have to be an overly complex or time-intensive endeavor, if you use the right workflow software. Keeping with our social media advertising example, suppose that the workflow for the order processing team were to be modified to automatically send data for zip code and order amount to a spreadsheet that would be accessible to the marketing research team. The right workflow software allows you to do this seamlessly and instantly, opening up the data to further examination and possibly valuable insights. Maybe your products appeal to a second ideal customer persona you never considered. Sharing data would help you realize this.
Reporting Helps All Teams Identify Data They Can Use
Workflow software with built-in reporting features can also extract more value from the data your company collects. For example, monthly or quarterly sales reports by dollar amount or volume of products shipped can help people identify trends. Maybe you sell more product in August, and then someone makes the connection that it’s popular as a back-to-school item. Suddenly you have insights that increase the precision of your marketing efforts.
Reports can also inspire ideas. Maybe someone didn’t realize you could create a report showing which customers have the highest average dollar amount per order. That information may be useful when it comes to making special offers, cross-selling, or upselling. It’s important for people in all departments to understand the capabilities of your workflow software’s reporting capabilities.
PerfectApps is workflow software that allows you to create perfectly customized workflows and online forms for your business, nonprofit, or government organization. It offers simple, straightforward integrations with Salesforce and Google Sheets, and can be synced with directory services and other systems, with no programming required. PerfectApps isn’t just about sleek online forms and automated workflows. It’s also about collecting and sharing data, creating reports, and generally helping your business operate at optimum efficiency, with minimum waste.
We invite you to read up on some of our case studies to see the many ways PerfectApps improves business processes and collects data. There’s no reason to let all that data your company collects just sit there, when it could be working for you, and PerfectApps gives you the tools you need to extract more value from your data.
