Business Intelligence: know what it is and whether it makes sense for your strategy

We live in the age of technology and information today. We are bombarded daily with the most diverse news. Data permeate our reality, and we need to know how to deal with it every day. For companies, data is an essential tool to guide decision-making in any area.

However, it’s not enough to have a bunch of data and not know how to use it to your advantage. It is necessary to interpret and understand them to draw insights from it and transform it into something really valuable. For this purpose, there is the Business Intelligence tool, also known as BI. BI is being increasingly used by organizations for the return it brings in the analysis of corporate data and in identifying improvements to be made.

Despite already being widespread within companies, BI is a recent resource. Therefore, in this post, we are going to explain what it is, how important it is in data analysis, its role in a business, and mainly, how to use it in digital marketing strategies. Clear your doubts about it by reading this text until the end!

What is Business Intelligence, the famous BI, after all?

Business Intelligence can be understood as a set of processes designed to collect data and transform it into valuable information to assist in decision-making and generate opportunities for action. In other words, it brings “intelligence” to companies. BI enables the creation of more accurate reports, optimizes strategies, and reduces the occurrence of possible errors.

BI operates with the objective of extracting relevant information that generates value for the business, bringing greater speed and assertiveness in decision-making. Currently, it is recognized as one of the most important sectors of organizations. This is because, in an increasingly competitive and unpredictable market, information can be considered the most valuable asset for companies.

How important is BI to organizations?

Companies that use BI are always one step ahead of those that don’t. The insights that can be obtained from its use guide companies in their actions, both in brand positioning and launching new products on the market, as well as in content marketing and social media publications.

Another benefit that BI brings is a greater return on investment (ROI) by enabling accurate strategies, more agile processes, and reduced costs. The concept of Business Intelligence encompasses not only the data collection and analysis process itself but also the specialists, techniques, computational resources, and software systems involved in information mining. 

Therefore, the BI team collects both internal data from the company and external data from websites, blogs, and social networks

Advantages of using BI

BI provides several competitive advantages for a business to always stay ahead of its competitors, focusing on intelligence, improving performance, and bringing satisfactory results in its use.

Using modern resources such as Big Data, for example – which brings robust applications in the collection of multiple sources of data –, it is possible to better understand the market in which a business operates, analyzing the competition, the target audience, and what they think and talk about a business, its products, and services.

In addition to influencing decision-making, BI is capable of predicting market trends, evaluating performance indicators (KPIs), assisting in the launch of new products and services, optimizing a company’s internal operational routine, and helping to improve customer relationships to enhance their experience, among other benefits.

How BI works in practice?

Transforming data into relevant information and interpreting it in reports is something that must be done constantly. It is a change in the culture of organizations that attributes their actions to data analysis and its applications. It is clear that the analysis of this data is done automatically. There are several tools and software that perform the collection and analysis, with functionalities that vary according to the needs of each business.

With the chosen BI tool, it is necessary to filter the data that is of interest to the company to outline the best strategies and make decisions. Over time, the team responsible for this routine will become accustomed to the process, and the analysis and insights will emerge more naturally and spontaneously. Thus, deeper knowledge can be obtained from the collected information.

What kind of data to collect with BI?

The data to be collected with BI varies a lot from company to company. Everything will depend on the objectives and needs in question. BI’s main purpose is to assist in strategic decisions that can be made based on the data collected, avoiding guesswork and seeking a smaller margin of error.

To define what type of data to collect, it is necessary to analyze what is important to the company, which data and channels are relevant to its strategy, depending on the sector, the size of the company and the number of employees. According to the business purpose, some of the data that can be collected and analyzed with BI are:

– Consumption behavior;

– Flow of visitors to a website;

– Conversion flow;

– Route taken by leads;

– Location of customers and leads;

– Most purchased products; and

– Customer demographic profile.

How to use BI in a digital marketing strategy?

BI is a great ally for the digital marketing area, mainly due to the possibility of generating insights and improving campaign performance in lead generation and customer acquisition. Marketing managers and analysts have the mission to demonstrate continuous growth and satisfactory results for their businesses. BI enables the collection and analysis of data that can be measured in measuring data in digital marketing actions.

With the measuring of data in digital marketing, it is possible to know precisely which campaigns were most effective, the paths that leads took before becoming customers, consumer behavior trends, the contents that most interest the target audience and also predict strategic actions to act and obtain favorable returns. Several platforms and tools provide the collected raw data, which needs to be analyzed and turned into insights to be used intelligently by companies. After analyzing the obtained data, it is necessary to work with them until they become relevant information to be used in marketing strategies, such as Inbound Marketing and Content Marketing.

This measuring of data through BI provides a continuous evolution for companies that monitor data with discipline and dedication, and thus they can implement improvements in marketing strategies based on the data generated by their operation. Now that you understand what BI is, how it works, and how fundamental it is within organizations to help in decision-making and contribute to the improvement of business strategies, it’s time to use it in your company! Do you have questions about how to implement it in your planning? Rest assured that here at VX, we can help you with that. Contact us right now!