The future of online marketing and the techniques necessary for
mining data and analyzing markets trends of the future were key focal
points at the predictive analytics section of the Xchange seminar of
2012. The event gave online marketers and webmasters the opportunity of
hearing first-hand techniques and information about data mining,
organization and business trends from actual developers of analytic
tools as well as from dedicated analysis.
The seminar was exceptional. I jotted down all of the enlightening
tips and techniques that online marketers/webmasters can employ to
predict future market trends so I could pass them onto you.
1. What is Predictive Analytics?
Simply stated, predictive analysis involves the use of analytical
tools to gather data and extract the necessary information needed in
predicting/forecasting future trends (which is marketing trends for this
topic) and the behavioral pattern of a targeted consumer base.
2. Predictive Analytic Techniques for Professional Online Marketers
Identifying your customer base – Business management 101: understand
your customer base, track them and identify prospective clients and how
they might interact with your system to create the perfect business
plan. This can be done cheaply with the use of free data analytical
tools from high ranking and SEOmoz.com websites that provide marketers
with a full package of business analysis tools.
3. Customer Relationship Management Systems – Relevant
data such as customer feedback, questions/queries on products and
services can be gathered from the CRM system setup on a website. This
data can then be analyzed or processed digitally with the use of PPC/Ad
analytical tools and digital recordings/analytical software to forecast
future sales trends.
4. Tell a Story – Tell a story once and it becomes a
tale, tell it twice and it becomes a process, repeat it four times and
it becomes a brand, five or more times and you would need an analytical
tool to measure its success. Therefore, creating an online brand and
tracking its progress is a part of predictive analysis because it builds
a marketing base that can be relied on in the future.
5. Accurately analyze marketing programs and understand what they mean
– Impacts of a marketing strategy must be tracked and incorporated into
a business analysis program. The data gathered will indicate the most
efficient marketing strategies that can then be used to bring in future
sales or get more customers.
6. Employing the use of Econometrics – We were also
advised as online marketers to take into account the external
influences, such as the economic situation, share indexes, even the
climate/weather conditions for forecasting future trends. With
econometric tools/models, you can now incorporate external/internal
statistics, marketing data and statistical methods in your predictive
analysis technique.
7. Customer Behavioral Pattern – While understanding
the human behavioral pattern that makes a person purchase goods and
services may be difficult, it is by no means impossible for online
marketers. Use analytical software such as Unica and Cognos to gather
both online and offline data to deduce the driving forces behind
purchases.
In conclusion, constantly switching up your marketing strategy
according to the trends of the times is the best advice there is for an
online marketer.
Sophie Milot,
Post from: SiteProNews