Blame it on the rain

You know how when it’s cold and rainy out in the morning, you just don’t feel like getting out of bed? You’re probably not alone – your customers are probably feeling the same way. That’s because weather can have an influence on us, it can determine our moods and impact our decision making. Sometimes you can just blame it on the rain.

In fact, weather is such an influencer on how we choose to behave, that super savvy organizations are now relying on weather data to enhance their analytics programs. This data can be used for inventory management, staffing decisions and, of course, marketing. Weather data can provide powerful and actionable insights into consumer behaviors and trends. For instance, when it is sunny and warm, consumers are more likely to respond to marketing campaigns. The sunshine makes us happier and more receptive to offers.

Let’s examine how this works. Consider you work for an HVAC company that utilizes weather data to trigger marketing campaigns. Last year, you noticed a spike in service calls when the weather reached a temperature of 80 degrees. In looking at the 10-day forecast, you notice it’s probably going to hit 80 early next week, so you pre-emptively begin sending emails to past customers reminding them to have their air conditioning unit serviced before the heatwave hits. Not only will customers begin making appointments sooner, but being proactive will also limit the number of stressful emergency calls you will receive when the weather heats up.

Companies also use weather-triggered analytics to determine when consumers will be in-store versus when they will shop online. If there’s a snow storm in the forecast, for instance, you’re likely to see a boost in online sales, versus in-store shoppers.

Making sense of weather data and determining the correlations between weather and sales patterns, can be tricky. That’s where we come in! Did you know B2E offers a weather-triggered analytics service called WeatherFootprint? Our database has 150 million records and 41,000 zip codes of data that spans a timeframe of 10 years. If you’re curious to see how your business is impacted by the weather, don’t just blame it on the rain – contact us for more information.

Cheers!

Keith