New technologies have made it exponentially easier in recent years to stay connected, whether it’s to family and friends through Facebook or your favorite celebrities via Instagram or Twitter.
Living in a connected culture also means being connected with brands, for better or worse. All of the devices you’re connected to, including your computer, tablet and smartphone, have the ability to track things about you, from personal preferences to your physical location.
It can be somewhat unnerving to know that brands have access to this information about you, but it does have its benefits. For example, many people like seeing ads online that cater to their interests rather than those that are completely irrelevant.
All of this available information big data is useful when it comes to consumer marketing, but it’s also forcing industrial markets to fall behind the curve.
Here is a look at big data, what it’s used for and ways industrial markets can begin to harness it to benefit their businesses.
A Refresher On Big Data
Big data is all of the information that’s collected about individuals across a wide variety of channels. It could include everything from Internet search history, location data pulled from your smartphone, purchase data from your credit card or even TV viewing habits.
All of this data is collected and crunched by marketers to help them segment their target audiences. In theory, big data allows advertisers access to information about individual consumers, but to avoid privacy concerns, most companies use it on an anonymous and aggregate level to form segments.
Segments can vary widely, from something simple such as women ages 18-49, or it can be much more specific, such as men between 40-45 who travel frequently for work and bought a new car within the past year.
Brands have only scratched the surface when it comes to big data. In the not-so-distant future, you will witness the rise of the so-called Internet of Things in which everyday items will be connected to the Internet.
In one example, an Internet-connected coffee machine can know how many coffee pods you brew each day, and what kinds of coffee you prefer. That data can be dissected by a coffee company to help them more effectively target you and people like you.
How Is Big Data Used?
As it stands, big data is used in a variety of ways, with seemingly new options coming every day.
The pizza chain Domino’s is one company that uses big data to its advantage, tracking things such as the types of pizza customers order, which individuals in a household do the actual ordering and the times of day customers are likely to order.
Big data has even infiltrated billboard advertising. Many billboards are now equipped with beacons that can collect information from smartphones within range, allowing advertisers to see the actions people take after seeing their ads.
One area that has fallen behind a bit, however, is industrial markets, which is generally defined as businesses marketing to other businesses. While it may be easy for a pizza chain to collect data on its customers, it’s not that simple for a company that manufacturers roofing equipment to see how their products are being used by contractors.
Big Data for Industrial Markets
One challenge for industrial markets looking to tap into the power of big data is keeping up with technological advances.
While consumers tend to update their smartphones to the latest available technology every few years, the life cycles of machinery, equipment and supplies in industrial markets can be much longer and therefore naturally a bit behind the curve.
Segmenting industrial markets has always been a challenge, but that slice of the business world is beginning to catch up with the advances seen in consumer marketing.
One way for industrial markets to do this is to use existing technology, such as the power of smartphones. For businesses and industries that matured before the rise of big data, offering a mobile app can help you track how customers use your product.
Such apps serve as a nice bridge between now and a future when just about everything will be connected to the Internet, allowing various types of businesses to gather all manners of information about their customers.
Until then, these tools can help industrial marketers from losing out on this age of connectivity.
