The economic business climate is in a state of constant flux – shaped by technology innovation, evolving consumer preferences, and global events. Over the past few years, the pace of change has accelerated dramatically, creating new challenges and new opportunities for business leaders to rethink their growth strategy.
Traditionally, access to capital has been a primary driver of growth for businesses, because it facilitates the expansion of operations, product development, marketing initiatives, and talent acquisition.
But not every company has the luxury of abundant capital at its disposal, especially right now. Limited access to financial resources can be a significant barrier to traditional growth strategies. That’s where data comes in.
The Data Revolution: Your new currency for growth
Data has emerged as a powerful tool for business growth. Companies, regardless of their size and available capital, are leveraging data to make informed decisions, optimize operations, and drive long-term success.
With the right strategy and partners, data can be the strategic asset that changes the game for businesses facing constraints in capital funding.
In the digital age, data is often referred to as the “new currency.” It’s valuable, abundant, and can be harnessed to unlock new opportunities that drive business growth and marketing efficiency. Data isn’t just numbers and stats; it’s the key to understanding customer behavior, market trends, and operational efficiencies. Here are a couple examples of how data drives growth:
- Insights-driven decision making: Data provides valuable insights that can shape strategic decisions and unlock a world of new opportunities. By analyzing data, businesses can make informed choices about product development, pricing strategies, and market entry points, reducing the risk of costly mistakes.
- Improved personalization and customer experiences: One of the most impactful ways data grows business and brand value is through personalization. By analyzing customer data, companies can create personalized experiences, tailoring their products or services to individual preferences. This enhances customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, business growth.
Building your data assets and business value through data collaboration
Smart business leaders understand that first-party data is often the most valuable asset they have today. They’re leveraging that data to shape innovative business strategies through data collaboration.
Put simply, data collaboration uses technology to combine and analyze data sets within an organization (internally) or with collaboration partners (externally) to enable a wide range of use cases.
With internal data collaboration, companies can leverage first-party data to discover new trends, close data silos within the enterprise, maximize operational efficiencies and develop insights that drive business innovation.
Externally, organizations can strategically partner with companies and collaborate, using first-party data from both sides, to gain deeper customer insights, and improve overall marketing success.
Here are some specific examples of the value of data collaboration:
- Predictive analytics and forecasting: With more data through data collaboration, you can uncover predictive analytics, which uses historical and current data to forecast future trends. Companies can use this approach to anticipate customer needs, inventory requirements, and sales patterns. For businesses with limited access to capital, this ensures efficient resource allocation and minimizes waste.
- Operational efficiency: Optimizing operational efficiency is essential for all businesses, but it’s particularly critical for those with limited capital. Data analytics can pinpoint inefficiencies and help streamline processes, reducing costs, and improving overall business performance.
- Digital marketing and customer acquisition: Digital marketing relies heavily on data to target the right audience with the right message at the right time. This precision can be a cost-effective strategy for companies without vast marketing budgets.
- Advanced analytics and behavioral insights: Advanced analytics and behavioral insights improve understanding of customer preferences, leading to more effective marketing and personalization strategies.
Real-world examples of data-driven success
Through the power of data collaboration, Pinterest is helping brands reach the right pinners—teachers, chefs, crafters, influencers—who are looking for products and services. By partnering with LiveRamp, Pinterest is able to provide targeted audience activation for a personalized customer experience; demonstrate the impact of advertising investments to partners; and respect customers’ privacy while optimizing performance and measurement.
Eli Lilly
Eli Lilly uses its rich first-party data to serve customers through their full health journey, rather than providing therapeutics for just one moment. To do this, the pharmaceutical leader needed to unify its siloed data to be able to understand it, act on it, and build the most accurate, connected customer view possible. The Lilly team selected LiveRamp for onboarding and activation to maximize the brand and business value of their data over time. As a result, governance has gotten easier, unifying patient consent while improving consistency and speeding innovation and scale.
Omni Hotels & Resorts
The hospitality leader is delivering four times more advertising effectiveness by leveraging first-party data in a privacy-centric manner to drive relevant advertising to their customers. Using Google’s PAIR and LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution, Omni Hotels & Resorts has been able to reconcile first-party data securely without sharing identifiers like cookies. This collaboration has allowed them to deliver personalized and effective campaigns, resulting in a significant increase in conversions – four times higher than traditional methods. With these impressive results, Omni Hotels & Resorts plans to continue leveraging this strategy to maximize the value of their first-party data while maintaining customer privacy.
Final thoughts
In a changing economic business climate, where access to capital may be limited, data is the answer. It empowers companies to make informed decisions, optimize operations, and drive growth.
With the right strategies and a commitment to data privacy, companies – regardless of their financial constraints – can leverage data as a vital tool for growth and competitiveness.
In the end, when money is tight, digging into your data and using it strategically will keep your business on a strong growth trajectory.
This blog was originally published on Jessica’s Shapiro’s LinkedIn. Follow her for more CMO insights.
