Marketing and sales teams use business analytics to identify appropriate approaches to marketing in order to reach a maximum number of potential customers at an optimized or reduced effort. These teams use business analytics to identify which marketing channel would be most effective (for example, e-mails, web sites, or direct telephone contacts). They also use business analytics to determine which promotional or product offers make sense to which types of customers (in terms of geographical regions, for instance) and to specifically tune their offers to meet the specific needs of that customer group.
A marketing and sales team might, for example, determine whether people like adventurous vacations, spiritual vacations, or historical vacations. That data, in turn, can provide the inputs needed to focus marketing and sales efforts according to those specific interests of the people—thus optimizing the time spent by the marketing and sales team. In the retail business, this can enable retail outlets (physical or online) to market products along with other products, as a bundled offer, based on the purchasing pattern of consumers. An airline could present exciting offers based on a customer's travel history, thus encouraging that customer to travel repeatedly with this airline only, and thereby creating a loyal customer over a period of time.