Big Data in digital marketing
Marketing, as it is today, is all about understanding your consumers i.e your audience. Vast sums of money are being invested in Customer Relationship Management softwares and Marketing Automation tools that use cutting edge technology such as Artificial Intelligence to try and predict at what time is a customer most likely to engage with our content the way we want them to.
There is one thing that is instrumental in every tool that uses Artificial Intelligence or some sort of forecasting and that is Big Data. In this article, I will try to explain what is Big Data, why it is important and in what way it is changing digital marketing.
What is Big Data?
Big data is a term that describes the large volume of data — both structured and unstructured — that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis. But it’s not the amount of data that’s important. It’s what organizations do with the data that matters. Big data can be analyzed for insights that lead to better decisions and strategic business moves.
While the term “big data” is relatively new, the act of gathering and storing large amounts of information for eventual analysis is ages old. The concept gained momentum in the early 2000s when industry analyst Doug Laney articulated the now-mainstream definition of big data as the three Vs:
1. Volume
Organizations collect data from a variety of sources, including business transactions, social media and information from sensor or machine-to-machine data. In the past, storing it would’ve been a problem — but new technologies (such as Hadoop) have eased the burden.
2. Velocity
Data streams in at an unprecedented speed and must be dealt with in a timely manner. RFID tags, sensors and smart metering are driving the need to deal with torrents of data in near-real time.
3. Variety
Data comes in all types of formats — from structured, numeric data in traditional databases to unstructured text documents, email, video, audio, stock ticker data and financial transactions.
Why is big data important?
The importance of big data doesn’t revolve around how much data you have, but what you do with it. You can take data from any source and analyze it to find answers that enable 1) cost reductions, 2) time reductions, 3) new product development and optimized offerings, and 4) smart decision making. When you combine big data with high-powered analytics, you can accomplish business-related tasks such as:
o Determining root causes of failures, issues and defects in near-real time.
o Generating coupons at the point of sale based on the customer’s buying habits.
o Recalculating entire risk portfolios in minutes.
o Detecting fraudulent behavior before it affects your organization.
How is big data changing digital marketing
Gone are the days when marketing decisions were guided by intuition and experience. Important marketing decisions are now determined by big data. This refers to the study and application of big, complex datasets, which cannot be processed by traditional data-processing applications. These figures generate insights that can lead to better business decisions and strategic moves. The application of the right technology improves the quality of decision making and detailing processes.
As the number of outputs and customer characteristics have increased, companies are faced with huge volumes of both structured and unstructured data. This level of processing is beyond the capacity of traditional databases and software techniques.
Big data enables companies to better target the core needs of customers by developing rich and informative content. Let’s understand how it helps companies collect data about customer behaviors. One example is cookie files. They collect information about customers’ activities as they browse the internet, generating personalized data in the process.
Campaigns that use big data are more effective than aggregative advertising used in the past. The good thing about using big data for creating marketing campaigns is that it takes the guesswork out of determining what customers want. Marketers can develop different buyer personas using data like customer behavior, purchasing patterns, favorites and background. For example, they may find that women are more likely to respond to email campaigns, use coupons and engage in bargains and deals, and shape their digital marketing campaign from there.
Content marketing is science!
Content marketing used to be an art. It was mostly dependent on a writer’s talent to convey the brand’s spirit into words. Now, that artistic element is still somewhat present in content marketing. But in essence, this type of marketing was turned into a science thanks to big data.
The writers no longer rely solely on their creativity when developing content for promotional purposes. They have entire teams behind them, analyzing big data and suggesting types of content, themes, topics, and stylistic variations that would work better.
This is a good thing. With such great support behind them, the writers can produce content that works better than ever. They can still express their creativity in unique ways, they just do it within the framework that big data sets. They address the right kind of audience, paying attention to demographics, likes, wants, issues, and other data.
In conclusion, technology has undoubtedly affected every aspect of our life and it’s breakthrough in business was inevitable. Application of Big data analysis and forecasting has its uses in whole variety of businesses from healthcare, education, government to architecture and retail. It is already maximizing sales and marketing efforts of countless companies and it’s only getting started.
