MySQL 08: SQL for real-world business problems: Customer segmentation and product analysis
In this post, we'll learn how to use SQL to solve real-world business problems. We'll cover customer segmentation and product analysis, two common problems businesses face.
Customer segmentation is the process of dividing customers into groups based on shared characteristics. This is important because it allows businesses to tailor their marketing and sales efforts to specific groups of customers.
Product analysis is the process of understanding a product's sales data. This is important because it allows businesses to make informed decisions about product development, pricing, and inventory management.
We'll use the MySQL database for this post. MySQL is a free, open-source database management system. It's a popular choice for web applications and is used by some of the biggest websites in the world, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
To get started, we'll need to create a database. We can do this using the MySQL console or a GUI tool like phpMyAdmin. We'll name our database "business."
Next, we'll need to create two tables: "customers" and "products."
The "customers" table will store information about our customers. We'll need to include the following columns:
The "products" table will store information about our products. We'll need to include the following columns:
Now that we have our database and tables set up, we can start adding data.
We'll start with the "customers" table. We'll add three customers to our database:
customer_id: 1
name: John Smith
email: john@example.com
date_of_birth: 01/01/2000
gender: Male
customer_id: 2
name: Jane Doe
email: jane@example.com
date_of_birth: 02/02/2001
gender: Female
customer_id: 3
name: John Doe
email: john@example.com
date_of_birth: 01/01/2000
gender: Male
Next, we'll add data to the "products" table. We'll add three products to our database:
product_id: 1
name: product 1
price: 10
category: category 1
release_date: 01/01/2020
product_id: 2
name: product 2
price: 20
category: category 2
release_date: 02/02/2021
product_id: 3
name: product 3
price: 30
category: category 3
release_date: 03/03/2022
Now that we have our data, we can start querying it.
We'll start with a simple query to get all of the data from the "customers" table:
SELECT * FROM customers;
This query will return all of the columns and rows from the "customers" table.
Next, we'll write a query to get specific data from the "customers" table. For example, we might want to get all of the customers who are female:
SELECT * FROM customers
WHERE gender = "Female";
This query will return all of the columns and rows from the "customers" table where the gender is equal to "Female."
We can also use the MySQL GROUP BY clause to group our data. For example, we might want to group our customers by gender:
SELECT gender, COUNT(*) FROM customers
GROUP BY gender;
This query will return the number of customers for each gender.
We can also use the MySQL ORDER BY clause to order our data. For example, we might want to order our customers by name:
SELECT * FROM customers
ORDER BY name;
This query will return all of the columns and rows from the "customers" table, ordered by name.
Now that we've learned how to query the "customers" table, let's move on to the "products" table.
We'll start with a simple query to get all of the data from the "products" table:
SELECT * FROM products;
This query will return all of the columns and rows from the "products" table.
Next, we'll write a query to get specific data from the "products" table. For example, we might want to get all of the products in the "category 1" category:
SELECT * FROM products
WHERE category = "category 1";
This query will return all of the columns and rows from the "products" table where the category is equal to "category 1."
We can also use the MySQL GROUP BY clause to group our data. For example, we might want to group our products by category:
SELECT category, COUNT(*) FROM products
GROUP BY category;
This query will return the number of products in each category.
We can also use the MySQL ORDER BY clause to order our data. For example, we might want to order our products by price:
SELECT * FROM products
ORDER BY price;
This query will return all of the columns and rows from the "products" table, ordered by price.
Finally, we'll write a query to get the average price of products in each category:
SELECT category, AVG(price) FROM products
GROUP BY category;
This query will return the average price of products in each category.
That's it! We've now learned how to use SQL to solve real-world business problems.