The Benefits of Big Data Marketing

Each day, consumers are voluntarily posting vital information about their likes and dislikes on social media sites. If this data can be captured and adequately organized, businesses can have at their disposal the exact information they need to improve their marketing efforts.

Financier and CEO magnate Douglas Merrill once said, “With too little data, you won’t be able to make any conclusions that you trust.  With loads of data you will find relationships that aren’t real… Big data isn’t about bits, it’s about talent.” According to a recent infographic released by IT consulting company iconicmind.com, Merrill is onto something -- research shows that big data lends a big hand in the marketing world!

The recent LinkedIn article titled, “Big Data: What Does it Really Mean?” discusses the heavy influence of big data mediums: “From investing and retail spending, to Web browsing, social media, and mobile phones, it's estimated that 90 percent of all data in use today have been accumulated within just the last two years!”

So just what exactly constitutes “big data?” Simply put, big data refers to information’s ever-increasing volume, velocity, variety, variability and complexity. The advent of progressive, human activity has led to a staggering acceleration of generated data, however the collection of these data sets have become difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications. 

The challenge therefore comes with storing and analyzing huge data sets to support a superior level of decision-making that drives accuracy, time management, customer segmentation and real-time marketing -- and its demand cannot be denied. It is estimated that over the next three years, there will be a 60 percent increase on marketing analytics.

The current value in 2013 for the big data industry is $18.1 billion, with projections expected to nearly triple in 2017 to an estimated $47 billion! We can thank consumer consumption for such  high demands of big data analytics. It’s estimated that three billion people worldwide create eight zettabytes of data; yes -- zettabytes. That’s 10²¹, or one sextillion. That’s a lot ‘0’ data!

As a result, marketers are coming to terms with how to use big data and analytics to better target consumers. In doing so, they often face multiple challenges at increasing rates, such as resolving the capture, curation, storage, search, sharing, transfer, analysis and visualization of large amounts of data.

Recently, new capabilities are taking data analytics to the next level; enabling marketers to utilize big data sets in rapid and cost-efficient ways by implementing the following processes: distributed processing, cloud storage, and data management strategies.

The following statistics from a 2013 survey released by computer software corporation Teradata highlights the benefits of implementing big data marketing strategies:

• 58% of survey respondents believe making more accurate decisions is a benefit of basing those decisions on data 
• 50% of marketers say that marketing and IT are not strategic partners in their company
• 40% of marketers gave their department a grade of C or lower for using data to drive marketing
• 71% of marketers plan to implement a Big Data analytics solution in the next two years
• Less than 10% of companies use the data they have in a systematic way

Demographic data accounts for 73% of data-driven marketing, versus transactional data, which represents 38% of data-driven marketing.  71& of marketers will implement a big data analytics solution over the next two years and yet 50% of them say that IT is not a strategic partner. To truly benefit from big data, it's important for marketing to form a strategic partnership with IT or some other team that can actually implement tools to utilize the data to mine patterns and trends, which can then help marketing with future campaigns and strategies.


Visit Maryland computer consulting firm Iconic Mind for a bevy of consulting options to meet your marketing demands!

Sources:

http://www.zdnet.com/big-data-marketing-global-survey-released-7000018947/

http://adage.com/article/dataworks/big-data-marketing-businesses-research-report-ad-age/243378/

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130531112407-17102372-big-data-what-does-it-really-mean

http://www.zdnet.com/can-big-data-technology-be-used-to-replace-creative-marketing-7000019145/

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/jun/12/what-role-big-data-marketing

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mckinsey/2013/07/22/big-data-analytics-and-the-future-of-marketing-sales/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2013/01/01/6-big-data-quotes-of-2012/

http://www.business2community.com/big-data/big-data-and-analytics-role-in-protecting-the-financial-industry-0588646

http://www.sas.com/software/customer-intelligence/big-data-marketing.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2269371/data-shows-big-data-marketing-is-a-growing-field

Why Most Marketing Campaigns Fail

Typically the reason a business, from start-ups to fortune 500 companies, hire an outside marketing consultant is because their internal marketing campaigns are failing. And if the best-laid marketing plans have the ability to go awry, imagine just how bad it is with poorly planned marketing campaigns. Here are some mistakes to avoid/things to consider when coming up with your next campaign that will hopefully increase your chances of success.

Ending a Campaign Too Soon

Too many times company's pull the plug on a campaign before giving it a chance to perform. Things like SEO and SMM aren't things that can be turned on and off. You must continually focus on them, investing time and money, even when you are losing out in the short term in hopes of recuperating your losses and making a profit in the long run.

That's why it's so important to budget correctly. The amount of money that you have available to spend will greatly impact your strategies. With the exception of a few situations (like running a PPC campaign), you should plan your budget on a yearly basis and not quarterly. 

With proper budget management, you should be able to keep campaigns going that need time to flourish before producing a positive ROI. This leads to the next point.

Not Getting Your Marketing Campaigns to Fund Themselves

While it may not be an easy task to create a positive ROI in the short run, it is possible. The best way of doing this is by splitting your efforts into two buckets.The first being campaigns that will provide a ROI within a few months and the second being those that will provide a ROI in the long run.

Campaigns like pay-per-per click advertising or pay-per-call marketing can provide a return in the short term while SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing are campaigns that typically need a longer time period to run before being able to provide a positive ROI.

It's important to maximize profits on these shorter-term campaigns so that you can take the money and invest in long-term campaigns. This will prevent you from burning through your budget too quickly since your marketing campaigns can help to fund themselves.

Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket

Many businesses that run a marketing campaign make the mistake of spending their entire budget on one specific marketing area which is a big mistake. Spreading your marketing and advertising efforts (SEO, SMM, PPC and other methods) will help with keeping your ROI balanced.

You Didn't Follow Up with Customers

The sales team should be at the center of your marketing campaign. It's important for your sales team to maintain open communication with potential customers. It is a common marketing mistake to allow customers to fall through the cracks. Once a potential customer makes contact, it is a good business practice to stay in touch with them. If the sales team is not following up with potential customers, the marketing campaign efforts won’t matter. 

If you're making these mistakes, don't panic. You can recover from a failed marketing campaign. Just make sure to take the time to review the previous campaign, recognize errors you made, and learn from the mistakes.

The Power of Color and its Ability to Impact Conversions

Color has a very powerful psychological affect on the brain, yet how much have you considered the colors you chose for your website, in particular your landing/sales page? When you choose the right visual elements (colors, fonts, design and theme) and get them to work in harmony  you'll be able to boost your conversion rates, however when they clash, you can certainly expect your conversion rates to drop. Take a look at the infographic below from KISSmetrics a revolutions person-based analytics platform for your entire team.

A few takeaways:

• Color Matters for Call to Action Buttons - Performable did a test where all the content in their page was the same except for changing the color of their CTA button. They noticed that the red button outperformed the green button by 21%. Or take this study done by 
  dMix where he also tested both a green and red button on his website. The text (“Get Started Now”) was the same on both buttons. The eye-catching red button contributed to a 34% increase in conversions.
• Product Assessment Takes 90 Seconds - 
  According to research done by the CCICOLOR - Institute for Color Research eveals people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.
  
  

• Visual Influence - Secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo 2004 showed that 92.6% of those surveyed stated they put the most importance on visual factors when purchasing products. Only 5.6% said that the physical feel via the sense of touch was most important. Hearing and smell each drew 0.9%. 

When making any changes to your website, you may want to do some testing first to see which colors work best with your page and your audience. Some generalizations though that you do want to take into account - think about what sections of your webpage should stand out the most and then use contrasting colors. The most important sections of your site should be in high contrast with the background while the lesser important parts should be in colors that don't contrast as much. This will allow you to draw your visitors eyes to the sections that you feel are the most important.