Many business owners want to utilize the power of data science in their businesses. They understand that they need to be able to compete and use their data, but don’t quite know how to get started. Does this sound like you?

Big data is expected to generate an increase of 60% in operating margins for retailers globally. In Europe, government administrators could make operational efficiency improvements worth more than $149 billion by using big data. But it’s not just large organizations or specific sectors able to benefit from big data. Small and medium-sized businesses can also analyze their data and generate actionable insights.

If you’re hoping to harness the potential of data science, here are 5 ways you can get started:

1. Define Your Target Market

You could have entire demographics who are a fit for your products or services, and yet you may not be targeting them. Data science and marketing research go together like two peas in a pod. The combination can help you uncover patterns about your clients, their preferences, the efficiency of your advertising, and even potential ROI for each channel of marketing.

Before big data was relevant, there were surveys and focus groups. Now, every marketing action you take can be tested, showing what your target audience likes and what makes them engage with your business.

2. Discover Potential Opportunities

By analysing existing data, you can reassess your current business process. This can give you plenty of opportunities for improvement. Consider the things you and your team do each day. A data scientist can thoroughly assess your workflow, suggest new ideas, and give you insight into what is and isn’t working.

Since data science allows you to be continually looking for potential opportunities, you can drive innovation and think outside the box.

3. Use Conclusive Testing      

Since data science allows you to analyse huge amounts of data, you can do much more conclusive testing. Instead of testing just one factor at a time, you can test a huge variety of data. This allows you to delve deep into what your visitors have been doing before visiting your website, giving you more accurate results from many different types of testing.

You’ll be able to use the results of this testing to provide visitors with different blog posts and variations of your homepage based on who they are and what they’re interested in.

For example, you may find that one version of your landing page works well with younger visitors, while another works better with older generations. By tailoring your content specifically to each user, you can give them the exact information they’re looking for- first time. This greatly increases the chance that they’ll convert from visitors to paying customers.

4. Utilise Intent Data

It’s hugely important that you know when a prospect is interested in a product or service you sell, and which stage they’re currently at in the buyer's’ journey.

Intent data is made up of the signals of a lead’s interest. You can determine this based on their trends over time, which show their readiness to buy. You can use data from your marketing automation systems and internal website for this. For example, if a prospect visits your website and downloads an ebook, you can determine which stage they’re at in the buyer’s journey based on whether they download an overview of your business or a whitepaper for a specific product.

Once you add in third-party data, like the content that leads are viewing outside of your site, you can further strengthen your marketing and sales teams’ knowledge.

5. Inform Product Development

Data science removes some of the risk when it comes to developing new products. It can show you if a certain product or service will be in demand by analyzing trends to predict future ones. This helps save your business from needless spending. If your data shows that the product you’ve been considering won’t be popular, you can throw out those plans and instead develop something that’s more likely to be successful.

These are just a few ways you can begin utilizing data science in your business. If you’d like to tap into the global data science market, get in touch today.