Data is created, captured, copied, and consumed at an ever-increasing rate globally. According to Statista reports dated 2022, the total volume of data produced already reached 64.2 zettabytes in 2020; it is further projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes by 2025. Such an abundance of data can surely be overwhelming if you don’t know where to begin.
No matter the industry a business deals in, the kinds of products/services offered, or the demographics of its target market, effective data collection is the key to ensuring success. Collecting different types of data enables the stakeholders to fuel and improve almost every aspect of their organization—including processes, functions, and decisions.
The types of data collected by businesses can be a user’s information on their fitness watch, past search queries, their IP address, their geo-location, the ads that they click online, and so on. However, collecting all the generated zettabytes of data might not be possible. You want to collect data that is beneficial for your business and put it to the best possible use.
Or, how do you ensure the collected data is relevant and vital for the business goals you aim to achieve? So, this is where professional data capture services come to the rescue—after all, a data-driven decision, process, or action is as strong as the data it is based on.
Discover Your Data’s Potential
As data is the new oil in the 21st century, offline and online data collection, thus, becomes an important business function, whether it is an aggregator startup, a small or medium-sized firm, or global corporations. Here’s a list of benefits that companies can gain:
- Strategic Decision-Making
A comprehensive database provides insights into how the products/services are perceived in the market and whether the customers like it or not; thus, letting you know what works and what needs improvement. This makes it easier for the stakeholders to make informed business decisions in less time and rework strategies if required.
For instance, the healthcare industry collects data to gather insights and determine what drugs are best, and how to improve other medicines. Likewise, toy manufacturing companies leverage data-driven insights to determine how children respond to their products.
Investing in data collection solutions helps companies to get a quality database at their disposal that facilitates data processing and analysis. They can easily test different decisions and determine which ones work the best for them as well as maintain their competitive advantage.
- Understand Market Demographics
One of the biggest reasons why so many companies collect their customer’s data is that they can dive deeper into the ever-evolving market matrices and know their consumers better. They get to know their consumers’ online behavior, define overall demographics, and identify ways that help in enhancing the overall customer experience.
Data collection in the form of feedback, surveys, suggestions, etc., makes it much easier for a business to understand what the customers want from them, the specific products/services offering they’re looking for, or how they would prefer to interact with the brand.
If you know your customers better, you can tweak your product/service offerings to better fit their needs and carve a unique niche for yourself in the industry. Apart from this, stakeholders can also work on improving the ways through which they communicate with the target audience, optimize their website to deliver a seamless user experience, and much more.
- Greater Personalization
When it comes to product recommendations, marketing and advertisements, order confirmations, or any type of communication between themselves and your business, the customers expect it to be personalized.
Collecting valuable customer data helps businesses to cater their consumers’ expectations in regards to personalized suggestions and communications—the more you know about your customers’ needs, wants, and interests, the more likely you are to close the sale and generate greater profits by pitching them products they’re most likely to buy.
Enabling the auto completion of payment methods as well as other forms on the website, and even knowing what devices the customers prefer to use when accessing that website makes way for greater personalization. Besides, digital marketers can effectively optimize their marketing strategies according to different segments of consumers.
- Boosted ROI
A company’s overall digital marketing strategy is more important than ever, especially in today’s world. An optimized ad campaign goes a long way in acing the peers, outranking the competitors, increasing conversions, and establishing a sense of trust and transparency between the brand and its prospects. A business can learn more about its average buyer persona, age, special events, life goals, preferred social media platforms, and much more.
However, this is not possible without data collection—using data-driven insights to make informed decisions. You can determine which of the marketing campaigns and tactics your target audience prefers or responds to the most. This way, businesses can create more effective and optimized advertisements and campaigns in the future.
Online data collection also helps in getting better insights into the overall customer path/journey. Accordingly, you can make the necessary improvements to enhance the user experience and add convenience.
Collect Your Data Responsibly
As evident, data collection is extremely beneficial for businesses of all sizes—but those advantages do come with specific responsibilities.
Companies must follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines in the context of data collection and protection. For example, the guidelines include responding to Subject Access Requests (SARs), not keeping data for longer than required, and ensuring that all the data is secure. Under SAR regulations, companies must provide a copy of the personal data that they have collected about individuals (whether they’re employers, consumers, or simply individuals who visited your website.)
With outsourced data collection solutions, companies can easily address compliance issues regarding individual rights and privacy management. Conforming to legal and industry standards during the data collection process goes a long way in shortening the sales cycle, improving the ROI, and expanding paradigms.
