Let’s imagine two online retail businesses. We’ll call them Crema and Mocha. Both are looking to refresh their online presence and attract new customers - but they go about it in very different ways.

To kick things off, Crema forms a project team to brainstorm ideas for making the company website look more appealing. The team works together to come up with an eye-catching new theme and color scheme that they all agree makes the site feel more modern. They also decide the logo needs a refresh, so they commission a design agency to come up with some new options.

Next, they study the websites of Crema’s closest competitors. They realize that the existing menu structure on their site could be more intuitive and user-friendly, so they update it to look more similar to the other brands. They also add a newsletter subscription that lets customers sign up for a monthly email.

Six weeks later and their work is done. The project team launches the new website, sits back and waits for the orders to come rolling in. But, much to their surprise, not a lot changes. Website traffic does increase very slightly but sales remain much the same.

Surprised, but not overly concerned, staff at Crema congratulate themselves on producing what they think is a much better-looking website. They agree that, as more people notice the work they’ve done and have a better on-site experience, they’ll become paying customers in no time…

So, onto Mocha. It goes about things a little differently… It also forms a project team, who begin by discussing what they wish to achieve and the insights they’ll need to steer them in the right direction. Next, they identify the data sources they’ll use to gain these insights - like their web analytics data, user feedback and checkout data…

They collate all this information to understand what currently works on their site and where customer pain points are. They then use this to design user journey maps to help them understand how people are interacting with their site. They identify that some of their calls to action lack clarity, that too many details appear below the fold and that they aren’t offering customers enough payment options at checkout. As a result, they work to redesign the website to improve the user experience, and collaborate with the finance team to include PayPal and Google Pay on the site.

Six weeks later, Mocha launches its new site and starts monitoring the results. To everyone’s delight, they’re even better than anticipated! Traffic increases 32% in the first month and sales rise by 15% in the same period - and this impressive trajectory continues over the next few months.

So, what made the difference? Well, Mocha embraced a data-driven approach. Its strategy was based on a real understanding of the market and its customers. Everyone was empowered by data, using it to drive changes and make improvements. On the other hand, Crema lacked a data-literate culture and relied on guesswork, “gut feel” and what other businesses were doing to make decisions.

The moral of the story? Taking a data-driven approach and embracing a culture that prioritizes data is key to success.

How to develop a data-driven culture

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