Why Big Data Makes Big Sense for Marketers
Big Data is all about making better business decisions using the insights gained from analyzing the vast quantities of business information that is created every minute. Big Data for marketer’s is about enabling immediate and insightful access to customer data you already have, but takes a long time to gather, understand, and interpret.
Applying advanced algorithms to customer interactive data can significantly increase your marketing performance. This includes the ability to track, analyze and profitably act on millions of customer data elements in real time – e.g., what messages customers have received, what products they have looked at, which purchases they have made, and their social, mobile, and other buying behaviors.
By combining algorithmic models with historical data, marketers are now able to answer questions like how likely is a customer to respond to a specific message or offer (e.g., price/promotion delivered via mobile at a certain time). By assigning a probability for each individual outcome, businesses are now armed with the insight necessary to take immediate action.
Automating the analysis of data across every marketing channel can deliver measurable business value. For example, data-driven, targeted email campaigns have been shown to average 30% more opens, 30 – 50% higher click-through rates and three times as many conversions as non-targeted broadcast emails, according to MarketingSherpa. Applying similar approaches to other marketing initiatives can also optimize website click-through rates and overall Web behavior, minimize customer churn, and improve call routing and other revenue-side interactions.
Our experience suggests it’s best to kick off Big Data marketing initiatives in an environment where you can continuously test and refine your model. Email is a great candidate for initial Big Data project deployments given its maturity and data rich quality. It is also tunable, testable, and can be optimized to deliver value at every stage of the buying process by using the right data processing and algorithmic methods,
Lyris customer Matches, a high-end UK retailer, does an excellent job of mapping relevant customer data to the buyer journey, resulting in increased engagement and conversions. Matches starts gathering data on its customers from the very start, with a strong welcome program that includes access to a preference center. Then it tunes into customers’ buying signals and responds to observed behaviors on its website, for instance with a special offer on a particular brand in response to observed browsing on that brand’s pages. Finally, Matches further modifies its targeting using purchase data to learn from individual and aggregated purchase habits in order to present the most relevant offers to every individual.
And this is just the beginning. Big data provides big opportunities to anticipate customers’ needs, consistently engage with them and earn their loyalty and trust. And that translates into increased retention, conversions, and profitability for your business.
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