Stop Guessing and Start Knowing
If you’re running a business in Brisbane—whether you’re a sparky in Chermside, a lawyer in the CBD, or running a boutique shop in Paddington—you’ve likely felt the frustration of "guessing" your way through your marketing.
You spend money on ads, you post on social media, and you hope the phone rings. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it does work, you aren't always 100% sure why.
What if you could look at a list of your past customers and know exactly which ones were about to book their next service? Or better yet, what if you knew which person walking past your shop was most likely to become a high-spending regular, and who was just a tyre-kicker wasting your time?
In the big end of town, they call this "predictive analytics." To you and me, it’s just knowing what’s going to happen before it happens. It’s about using the information you already have to make smarter decisions that result in more money in the bank.
Most small business owners hear the word "analytics" and their eyes glaze over. They think it’s for tech giants with massive budgets. I’m here to tell you that’s rubbish. If you have a list of customers and a record of what they’ve spent, you can start predicting the future today.
What is This Actually? (Without the Jargon)
Predictive marketing isn't magic, and it isn't a crystal ball. It’s simply looking at patterns.
Think about it like this: If you’ve been a plumber in Brisbane for ten years, you know that when we get a massive storm in January, your phone is going to ring off the hook for blocked drains. You don’t need a computer to tell you that; you’ve seen the pattern.
Predictive analytics is just that same logic applied to everything else in your business. It looks at your sales history and says, "Every time a customer buys Product A, they usually come back three months later to buy Product B."
Instead of waiting for them to maybe remember you, you can reach out to them at the two-month mark with an offer for Product B. You aren't guessing; you're using real numbers to get customers based on what they’ve done before.
Why Most Brisbane Businesses Waste Money
Most small businesses treat every lead and every customer the same. They send the same email to everyone. They show the same ads to everyone. This is a massive waste of money.
I’ve seen dozens of local businesses burn through their marketing budget by chasing the wrong people. They spend $2,000 a month on Google Ads to get 50 phone calls, but 40 of those calls are from people who just want the cheapest price and will never call back again.
By using predictive methods, you can identify the "whales"—the customers who spend the most and refer their friends—and focus your effort on finding more people just like them. When you see exactly where your best customers come from, you stop throwing money at the stuff that doesn't work.
Three Ways This Makes You Money
Let’s get down to brass tacks. How does this actually put more profit in your pocket?
1. Stopping Customers from Leaving
It is five to ten times cheaper to keep an old customer than it is to find a new one. Predictive tools can flag a customer who hasn't booked in their usual timeframe. If a regular client at a hair salon in Indooroopilly usually comes in every 6 weeks but hasn't been seen in 10, the system flags them. You send a quick "We miss you" text with a small discount. You just saved a customer who was about to go to your competitor. This is the most effective way to stop losing customers and keep your books full.2. Finding the "Right" New Leads
Instead of showing your ads to everyone in Brisbane, you show them to people who look exactly like your best current customers. If your top spenders are all mums aged 35-45 living in the bayside suburbs who enjoy Pilates, why would you waste money showing ads to 20-year-old guys in Fortitude Valley? Predictive tools find those common threads so your ad spend goes further.3. Knowing What to Sell Next
If you’re a landscaper and you just finished a big deck for a client, you know they’ll probably need garden maintenance or outdoor lighting in six months. Predictive marketing automates this. It ensures the right offer hits the right person at the time they are most likely to say "yes."Is This Expensive?
Here is the honest truth: It used to be. Five years ago, you’d need a team of data scientists and a six-figure budget.
Today? Not even close.
Most of the software you probably already use—like your CRM, your email platform, or even your accounting software—has these features built-in. If you use Shopify, it already tells you who is likely to buy again. If you use Mailchimp, it tells you the best time of day to send an email so people actually open it.
You don’t need to buy a $50,000 system. You just need to start using the data you already have sitting in your spreadsheets and booking systems.
How Long Until You See Results?
This isn't an overnight fix. If someone tells you they can predict your sales perfectly by next Tuesday, they’re lying to you.
Month 1: You gather your data. You clean up your customer list and make sure you know who bought what and when. Month 2-3: You start seeing patterns. You notice that people who buy "Service X" usually come back for "Service Y."
- Month 6: This is where the magic happens. You’ve been running targeted offers based on those patterns, and you start seeing your "customer lifetime value" go up. People are staying longer and spending more.
What Should You Do First?
Don't get overwhelmed. You don't need to be a math genius. Here is the step-by-step plan I’d give to a mate:
1. Look at your best customers: Export a list of your top 20% of customers by spend. What do they have in common? Where do they live? What did they buy first? 2. Identify the "Gap": Look for customers who haven't bought from you in a while but used to be regulars. Reach out to them today. 3. Track everything: If you aren't tracking where your leads come from, start now. Ask every person who calls, "How did you hear about us?" and write it down.
What’s a Waste of Money?
Avoid anyone selling "AI Marketing" that sounds too good to be true. There are plenty of shiny new tools that promise to do everything for you but just end up costing you a monthly subscription fee for no result.
Also, don't bother with "Big Data" if your "Small Data" is a mess. If your customer list has three different entries for the same person and half the phone numbers are wrong, no amount of fancy prediction software is going to help you. Fix your basics first.
The Local Marketing Group Difference
At Local Marketing Group, we don't care about fancy charts or technical jargon. We care about whether your phone is ringing and if those calls are turning into profit. We help Brisbane business owners stop guessing and start using their own data to grow.
If you're tired of wondering if your marketing is actually working, let's have a chat. We'll look at what you're doing and show you how to find more of your best customers without wasting a cent on people who will never buy.
Ready to grow your business with a plan that actually works?
Contact us today at https://lmgroup.au/contact