Analytics has been the penultimate big data marketing tool for e-commerce for a decade or more. There are so many amazing analytics platforms available as e-commerce solutions. Maximizing sales via big data analytics is only as good as the laser-sharp interpretation of your data. Wouldn't it be a miracle of sorts to have data to analyze for brick-and-mortar commerce? Heat maps are one of the best e-commerce marketing tools. You are able to optimize your online shopper marketing by carefully analyzing dwell time on every page of your website. Perfect. But if your brand is comprised of both e-commerce and in-store foot traffic, you require more and better data analytics. Brick-and-mortar marketing analytics has been one tough customer.

You can access your register receipts. You have anecdotal evidence of shopper experience from your sales associates. While both metrics provide valuable information regarding customer behavior, neither metric is as reliable as the magic of big data. Register receipts only tell you what sold, not why. The interaction between your sales associates and your shoppers is inherently subjective.

Luckily applications of heat-map analytics in retail, store environments have not only been in development but have also been rigorously tested as well as proven to be just as, if not more, effective than the ubiquitous e-commerce heat map analytics. Your in-store sales can be an even better source of revenue growth than your online sales if you invest in the best technology. By now you know that there is a great SEO shop behind every shrub. You have hopefully established a great relationship with the one that has elevated your online brand to rock star status.

Your brand is a rock star, not a garage band! It is a relatively simple matter to translate your online status to in-store (stadium tour!) customer loyalty. You need a retail heat map with its unbiased data to achieve that. What specific information can a retail heat map provide you? Prepare to be impressed. Via video processing, using the CCTV technology that you have already invested in, you are able to record your real-time, in-store data in the following amazing ways:

• Store heat maps

• Store traffic

• Shopper flow

• Store zone activity

• Queue management

• Category and product traffic performance

• Service optimization

• Dwell time

How truly wonderful would it be for you to have a virtual X-Ray device of each of your stores in order to analyze performance and conversion data just as you do for your website? How much more wonderful would it be if that virtual X-Ray device was fully integrable with your existing technology investment?

You are more than likely imagining how you would be so much more empowered with a retail crystal ball. There are so many ways to utilize objective data if you can have it. What would you do with an actual heat map of your stores' real-time activity? The possibilities are endless. Here are a few of the immediate pay-offs:

• Analyze existing marketing and promotions

• Optimize store layout

• Adjust staffing to accommodate shopper flow

• Adjust pricing to manage existing as well as incoming inventory

• Identify marketing and promotion opportunities

• Maximize customer loyalty

Wow. Knowledge is power. Power over your data is profit. Just as with your website and your SEO efforts, brick-and-mortar points of sale also require attention to detail. One or two simple tweaks will result in a profoundly different shopper experience. You know your brand, you know your stores. Now you have the power to experience your brand and your stores as your customer.contact us with regard to your brick-and-mortar retail heat map needs.