1. You’re already doing it. Well, sort of. Marketing professionals do this type of analysis all the time. It’s about interpreting lots of customer signals, then determining the best action for you to guide the customer to do what you want them to do. The trouble is that humans have limited capacity to analyse all the information, which is where machine learning – and predictive analysis – comes in.
2. It’s about gut feel. As a marketing professional, you’re using your experience and gut feel all the time. But in fact, the first validation of any good predictive analytics is that it confirms gut feel. The basis of gut feel is rarely wrong, it is just often too vague.
3. Combine your own data with external intelligence for the most successful results. The amount of information available externally is amazing – when combined with existing internal sales patterns, it can provide much better results in terms of lead scoring or customer acquisition.
4. There are multiple ways to deploy predictive analytics. These range from DIY implementation, to outsourcing before bringing inhouse or outsourcing software as a service. There are numerous ways to implement predictive analytics in your organisation, and each have their own benefits and drawbacks.
5. Make sure you consider the business case. You’ll need to figure out where additional value can be gained or saved. Predictive can actually be hugely useful when it comes to retaining your existing customers or upselling to them.
