A Guide to Understanding and Using Big Data in Marketing

Data-driven marketing has been helped with the use of big data. Marketers have access to massive amounts of data streaming to them at lightning speeds from various channels. This data is rich with information about customers that marketers can use to personalize campaigns making them more relevant and effective.

Research has shown that companies, in general, are factoring data into their marketing and sales decisions to a greater degree in order to boost their returns on investment by 15 to 20%. The problem that marketers find with big data is that the information they need can be hidden deep within the data. This is why big data analytic tools are necessary, but they are only helpful if you are using them correctly.  If you are going to be working with big data, there are some tips that you should know about to help your strategy move more efficiently.

Look Further Than Collection And Analysis

With the large amount of data that is available to marketers, it is easy to get trapped in the revolving door of collecting and analyzing. To avoid this trap, you need to ask yourself how having all the information will help or impact future marketing strategies. You need to understand from the start that marketing is not all about the data that you have.

Marketing is about the insights that you get from the data which helps you make better marketing decisions. In order to get these insights, you will need to have an idea of what you are looking for and ensure that you are asking the right questions when looking at the data. You need to understand how and when you should be making changes to your marketing based on the insights that you gain.

Break Down The Silos

Customer data will generally be broken down into data silos which limits the ability to share and access data between different departments like marketing and sales. If you are adopting a big data strategy, you need to understand how all of these silos work together and this means that you need to break the silos down. There are many analytic platforms that allow you to integrate all of your data silos into a single big data set which provides a complete view of customer preferences, interactions and behavior. The insights that you gain from this complete data set will be more relevant and help you create better-targeted marketing campaigns which motivate and engage your potential customers.

Conduct Virtual Marketing Campaigns

The traditional marketing campaigns of the past were generally a product of creativity, educated guesses and talent based on the in-market testing a company did. While talent and creativity are still important in the marketing world, big data insights will help you eliminate the guesswork that was used in the past. The use of big data will also make marketing more cost-effective as research will not have to be done by the company.

Big data simulations also offer a risk-free environment for marketers to test, refine and retest their campaigns before they become live. When you do this, you ensure that the campaign you use is finely-tuned and will be more successful. You can then employ a post-marketing analytic which helps you determine the overall effectiveness of the marketing strategy.

Capitalize On Your Competitors Weaknesses

The use of big data provides marketers and companies with powerful information about what their customers want and need. It can also help you get the competitive edge if you are able to fulfil these wants and needs at a faster, better and more economical rate than your competition. Of course, before you can accomplish this, you will need to know what the strengths and weaknesses of your own company are.  

Once you understand this, you can use your big data packets to research your competitors and determine what their weaknesses and strengths are. When you are armed with this information, you will be able to analyze and connect the dots in terms of what customer wants and what the competition offers. You can then create a marketing strategy that will exploit your competitor’s weaknesses and highlight why your company is the better choice.

Get A C-Level Buy-In

If you want to ensure that you have a successful data-driven campaign, you need to ensure that all C-level leaders are able to support the marketers with their initiatives. The best way to do this is to gain a C-suite support that looks at the data from their point of view. Showing leaders how data-driven marketing can support the individual programs and drive the business goals is important to ensure that they are on board with having big data.

Practical Usage

Use An ERM (Experience Relationship Manager)

A good experience relationship manager is vital for experiential and in-person marketing events.  The manager will monitor the marketing efforts against the results that you get and will save you time. You will also be able to determine the costs of ongoing events that do not generate a substantial ROI.  

Size Up Influencers

Influencer marketing is something that you should look into. The problem with this is that it can be hard to determine and predict the ROI with this kind of marketing. However, there are a number of tools that you can use to assess the social reach of the influencers reach, the number of followers and their social activity.

Take Emails To The Next Level

Email marketing is not dead and it actually the preferred marketing method for many businesses because of the effectiveness. According to Matthew Woodward’s SEO blog email marketing drives in results as long as you use actionable insights. There are many email marketing solutions that will help marketers track the number of emails that are opened and the number of links clicked. You can also use the tools to automate email marketing.

Rethink Traditional Marketing

Inbound marketing is the savvy marketer’s secret weapon. Creating content that adds value to your audience is vital, but you also need to look at analytic custom tools. These tools will take the mystery out of measuring and knowing your ROI.