By C Stephen Clegg, Debbie Frakes, Guest Bloggers | LearningWithoutScars.com
Revenue and transaction trends tell a story about your company. They allow you to recognize sales patterns and understand what activities, processes, and methods lead to consistent business growth. Without this information, you won’t be able to make sound decisions for your company. Tracking and acting on revenue analytics and trends will help you answer the following critical questions:
· Who should you target for marketing initiatives?
· Which products or services should you focus on?
· What customers and prospects should your salespeople spend time contacting?
If you don’t determine the right answers to these questions, then you won’t be able to meet your revenue goals, let alone exceed them.
How to achieve your revenue goals.
When it comes to drivers of revenue, two of the most important analytics are the number of transactions and customer retention. They explain exactly what is happening in your business and where you may be falling short. These two revenue analytics go hand in hand, because the longer someone works with you, the more transactions they will make.
Below is an example of a business whose new customers during the past 12 months make up 51% of their total number of customers. The numbers show how the behavior of these customers changes over time, if they keep working with you.
Average transactions
Year 1: 3
Year 2: 13
Year 3: 18
Average revenue
Year 1: $39,099
Year 2: $154,537
Year 3: $178,789
These revenue analytics show that the longer a customer works with you, the more valuable they become to your company. For this reason, when it comes to meeting and exceeding your revenue goals, retaining customers over the long term should be a primary focus of your sales and marketing teams.