We live in a technologically augmented world, and with it comes a huge amount of data, which businesses gather every single day – from videos, pictures, maps, words, phrases, and numbers – big data handles datasets that cannot be analysed with normal statistical methods.
Harnessing this information and developing strategies for the company based on this data-driven approach can make a very real difference to the operation of a company and provide a huge competitive edge.
Big Data in businesses essentially captures every customer action, and allows companies to be more effective than ever before with their marketing, product development, and brand growth.
Using Big Data for Business Intelligence
By effectively using big data, companies are able to collate, sort, and analyse huge amounts of information, which can then be utilised to improve the business on a number of levels, such as:
– Streamlining business processes
– Identifying areas of operational weakness
– Gathering valuable customer insights (such as interests, behaviours, likes / dislikes)
– Evaluating the success or failure of campaigns
– Developing targeted strategies
When you’re working from data, it’s important to determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to create benchmarks, and to run dataset queries on a regular basis – there may be times (especially in seasonal periods) where the data is directly related to a certain time of year, and this has to be taken into consideration when creating future planning strategies.
Applying Big Data to Marketing
There are vast amounts of information available to businesses from customers who are engaging with them digitally – and with the right collection points in place, you can develop a hugely targeted strategy that works with the information you’ve gathered.
From Google searches and Facebook likes, to Ad clicks and page views, the ability to evaluate the digital footprint of your customer means that you can see what they like, what they don’t like, and what they don’t care about.
By applying data analytics to the information you’re gathering from your customers, you can create marketing campaigns not only for a broader audience, but also targeted ones that are aimed specifically at certain demographics or users.
Combining this with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies and geo-targeted advertising can be extremely effective for reaching existing customers and targeting new audiences.