Blog posts of '2019' 'June'

Improve Your Data Analytics Strategy With these 5 Steps

Most organizations use traditional approaches when it comes to surveys and data analytics, according to a recent study. If organizations want to find success in using their data to achieve their goals, they need to implement a transformational approach to data and analytics.

More than half of employees are of the same opinion in thinking their organization should be doing better with analyzing useful data in order to reap the great potential benefits. These benefits can include such things as being able to use advanced predictive and prescriptive forms of analytics, and having better relationships with suppliers and partners. The benefits ultimately lead to an increased competitive advantage, that could be the push the organization needs to pull ahead in the industry.

Analytics has been guiding companies in determining the most efficient process to use, providing a better customer experience, and guiding product development to more customer minded outcomes.

Its easy for organizations to meet roadblocks when trying to increase analytic and data use, beware of these 5 things and your organization will have a much better ability to implement data strategies and reap the benefits.

1. The Wrong Culture

An organizations culture influences the mindset of employees and sets expectations for what is appropriate. Employees can have difficulty thriving if they don’t feel they are following the flow of the culture. Unfortunately, culture is harder to change the longer the organization has existed, and for many organizations if culture is not intentionally created by the founders, it can form into destructive attitudes and mindsets that employees feel they have to follow in order to fit in.

To have a culture ideal for advanced data and analytics acceptance, employees need to feel that they have support in the data gathering process, which often takes more than one shot in order to get the data that gives the right insights. If employees have to worry about penalties when the first shot doesn’t produce desired results, then they won’t be willing to take a shot at all. Using data in a transformational way requires spotting small insights, and a lot of them, then piecing them together to create a complete picture over time.

2. Data Must Be Current and Accurate

Data changes as rapid rates, even data that seems to change slowly over time can cause large misleading results if it is assumed to be still relevant despite it not being current. Transformational data is real-time or as close to real time as possible. Insights into trends appear over time and can lead to big outcomes. We understand this here at Zip Code Download, and that’s why we offer monthly updates of our data, so your organization will never be held back by inaccurate information when it comes to Zip Code Data.

3. Help the un-analytical minds

Not all employees are going to have a background in analytics and understand its importance, or even understand it at all. This doesn’t mean they are not valuable employees; they may have a great business mindset that helps them create strategic campaigns. Help those who don’t understand analytics to see the value and find meaning amongst all the numbers. When business and analytics come together, businesses are able to jump ahead of the competition and dive into trends that will put them on top. Products that fulfill needs are made when the right information and talent comes together.

Need to do a Zip code lookup?

Need to do a Zip Code Lookup? Everyone needs to do it at least once in a while, with how important Zip Codes are in sending mail, identifying where customers reside, or for data collection matching the right zip code to the right address is essential. Even customers who may be stored in a database from years previous may require a zip code check every once in a while to ensure their zip code has not changed. Of course, it’s best to do this monthly since the USPS makes monthly changes to Zip Code boundaries, or by them adding or deleting Zip Codes, but if incredibly accurate data is not necessary, then quarterly or yearly may be enough.

If you have a small database and need to only look up a few Zip Codes, then we offer a free tool to do so. Simply look up what State you are needing a Zip Code for, and scroll until you find the city of the address you are finding a Zip Code for, you can do so here. If you want to do a reverse Zip Code Lookup, by tying in the Zip Code to find the city, you can do that here.

If you have a larger database and can’t manually do a zip code lookup, then the 5 or 9 digit Zip Code Database will do wonders for saving time. Get basic information about a zip code, or extensive depending on your need. You can also automate the whole process using our API and perform radius searches.