Business owners are always in need of the best tools to make their location profitable. Measuring success seems simple: consistently strong or increased sales, satisfied customers that return frequently, and engaged employees who support both. Businesses that have mastered those “Big Three” are generally successful and, as a result, often postpone plans for transaction data capture or other marketing advancements until the budget is plentiful, systems are optimal, or traffic slows down. But perhaps it’s better to launch when business is booming so you can identify immediate results. The truth is, you’re just not sure what the right time is, so it’s likely to be put it off. Again.
There’s no time like the present.
While it may seem that many things need to align perfectly and there is one precise time to leverage new marketing tools, the truth is that the best time to start making your business smart is now. We define a smart business as one who uses data collected from their point-of-sale transactions to create real, actionable insights to drive revenue. Beginning today hastens the results you see next week, next month, and so on. And even though you may be happy with your business outcomes, there is always an opportunity to do more.
Keys to getting started:
- Whether you start big or start small, just start. The number of locations in which you launch could be 20 or 2000 – it’s not as important as the fact that you are now collecting data. Simply gathering the data gives you insights you didn’t have before.
- It takes results to know results. One of the most powerful benefits of aggregating transactional data is that you’ll know what’s working, and just as important, what’s not working. Understanding what drove customers back and what was purchased on that return visit will help shape future offers and build customer loyalty for the brand.
- Give customers a reason to come back. Ensuring your customers receive personalized marketing messages based on their current purchase information is an excellent way to show you understand and value your consumers. This is crucial since, according to [Frost & Sullivan](https://ww2.frost.com/), customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020.
Still not convinced?
The time to start learning more about your business and using customer preferences to your advantage is now. Click here to learn more about how a QSR franchise brand got smart and saw fast results. Their recent 12-week pilot launched in a group of 20 locations and accumulated 20,000 SMS subscribers while bringing 75% of customers back in to redeem the initial offer, adding $100,000 in incremental sales.