Whether you’re doing business online or offline, having knowledge of your audience, their likings, their purchase pattern, purchasing capacity, and other related parameters is a must. Doing business without the right data about your audience at hand is like selling non-vegetarian food to vegetarians – you will never succeed.

A powerful combination of private and public data and analytics is something every business is running after, but not all achieve the desired success. This is because they are unaware of the different types of data analytics for businesses and the actionable insights each offers. Read on if you are confused about choosing data analytics services and why it is important.

What is Data Analytics?

Data analytics is the process of collecting data, analyzing it, and identifying patterns or future trends that help organizations make informed decisions and gain a competitive edge in the market. Data analytics is a broad term and helps different entities in different ways based on what they want to achieve.

From measuring the amount of coffee beans that can make 10 cups of coffee to calculating your total steps, they all are more or less a form of data that you can analyze.

Types of Data Analytics

Understanding how data analytics can help your organization make better decisions and grow is paramount when choosing data analytics services. Here’s what you should know-

Descriptive Analytics

It’s the most common and widely used business data analytics that tells you about the overall performance of your past event or campaign. In short, it is the data that tells you what happened. This analytics helps you understand what decisions that you made in the past worked and what needs improvement. Moreover, with the help of descriptive analytics, you can identify patterns, helping you curate campaigns that align with them.

For example, identifying the period of time that gets maximum sales is a type of data that you get through descriptive analytics. This information enables you to run special discounts during that time or maybe do cross-selling to boost sales.

Diagnostic analytics

This type of analytics helps you determine the root cause of an outcome and answer the question – why it happened? Through diagnostic analytics, organizations identify patterns and compare trends, abnormalities, and correlations between variables to determine the actual cause of the problem that the business is facing.

For example, knowing the reason – why a particular customer unsubscribed or canceled an order is what diagnostic analytics tell you. This information empowers the brand to improve its user experience and avoid losing more customers.

Predictive analytics

This analytics considers historical events or data and predicts what might happen in the present or future. Today, predictive analytics takes into account statistical analysis, modern Artificial intelligence, and machine learning to give you the most accurate data possible.

For example, past records of increased sales during the winter of a brand’s particular product predict that the same thing might happen in the future. This analysis helps the brand to adjust product prices and stock up in advance.

Prescriptive analytics

As the name suggests, this type of analytics tells you what to do next. Prescriptive analytics is more complex as it combines both internal and external data and machine learning, which helps you with data-driven decision-making.

For example, businesses can optimize their marketing campaigns through prescriptive analytics. Which platform brings the most customers and what time is the best are some of the questions you get answers to.

Conclusion

Whether you have a well-established business or are starting out fresh, without data analytics, surviving in the competitive world is nearly impossible. On the one hand, you can buy the best analytics tools, learn how to use them, and then use them for your own benefit, but this could be time-consuming and require sound technical knowledge. On the other hand, you can hire one of the top data analytics service providers to do the work for you. If you are among the people who would go for the latter option, you can visit FindingMena. It’s a platform that offers a directory of top service providers from different marketing segments across the industry, where you can connect with your desired agency and collaborate right away.