Why Do We Choose Data-Driven Marketing?
“The world is now awash in data and we can see consumers in a lot clearer ways.” Max Levchin, PayPal co-founder.
Welcome to Mengning’s blog. This week I want to take you to a tour on how data has changed our daily routines as marketers. Nowadays, people often say that it is the gold era of big data. But how many people really understand big data and how it’s been used in the marketing field? Big data first appeared in the 1990s, when Bill Inmon, the father of data warehouses, mentioned in his book.
According to my research, big data, also known as huge amount of data, refers to the massive, high growth rate and numerical information assets that require new processing models to maintain stronger decision-making power, insight, and process optimization capabilities. Big data has a wide range of sources, for example, it may come from social networks, e-commerce sites, customer tracking records, and many other sources. It can be said that big data is everywhere, and the information we leave on the Internet is also part of big data.
No wonder that big data marketing has become a new trend. Companies can no longer rely solely on past experiences to make marketing decisions. They need to dig out the potential value of data, gain insight into consumer psychology, and react quickly to market changes based on the analysis of company-related data. Looking for market opportunities and quickly formulate marketing mix strategies to seize the highest point in the market.
Through the collection of a large amount of structured and unstructured data and analysis of customers’ online behavior and shopping records, various business information can be excavated, and targeted marketing strategies can be formulated to effectively assist companies in carrying out marketing activities. Therefore, big data has triggered a huge change in marketing methods.
And now comes a new question. How do we do marketing in this data-driven age? How can we make sure to use data properly and effectively?
The advent of big data has greatly changed consumer behavior. Consumers quickly obtain the latest market information, understand market conditions more easily, and can purchase idealized products through multiple comparisons. Therefore, active and rational consumer behavior has become the mainstream trend.
In addition, due to the wide and rapid data dissemination, and the transparent and fast communication, consumers are often more imaginative, have a crush on innovation, and put forward higher requirements for personalized consumption. The changes in active, rational, and personalized consumer behaviors lead to the inability of traditional experience and sample surveys to accurately understand consumer needs, thereby affecting the effects of our marketing decisions.
Companies use the Internet to collect first hand data such as consumer web browsing history, product information query, product purchase time, purchasing frequency, etc., analyze consumption habits, categorize consumers by types and consumption preferences, and determine consumer decision-making funnel.
By analyzing big data, we can constantly discover business opportunities and gaps in the market, and we can promote customized services for consumers with their unique needs, so as to improve customer satisfaction and achieve marketing goals. For example, by capturing data that record consumer online shopping traces, we can accurately predict that consumers will buy a certain product for a certain period of time in the future. And prepare for the supply in advance.
By promoting the correct and accurate product information, consumers can easily find and accept the product. During this process, consumers lower their search cost, which also helps companies establish good customer relationships and gain active market engagement.
In conclusion, through the rational use of big data, product and sales management can also be efficiently improved to promote cross-selling. Meanwhile, the organizational structure of enterprises and work content for marketing departments should gradually shift to data collection, analysis, processing, and application. Enterprises fully integrate into the era of big data will lead to the ultimate win in the market competition.
