All too often marketers rely on gut feelings or hunches to make a decision. From deciding on the best time to reach out to a new prospect, to product positioning, marketers rely heavily on instinct. But decisions based on gut feelings are, at best, educated guesses. Hunches lead to gambles that may or may not pay off.
Very often, the need to make “gut” decisions happens because the marketer doesn’t have enough data to make informed choices. The data may not have been captured or it may not be accessible. Even if it is captured and accessible, the data may be too big to analyze.
Understanding big data, and drawing meaningful conclusions from it go a long way toward helping organizations make more educated marketing decisions. That means collecting and filtering data from all possible sources, including invoices, emails, social media interactions, or other points of contact. Then, it involves integrating all those data sets into a common platform and subjecting the data to analysis. The resulting insights offer meaningful information based on past results and customer habits.
Applying big data helps marketers predict the most likely outcome of their decisions, taking the guesswork or the “gut feeling” out of the process. For instance, a marketer may decide to launch a new promotional campaign which offers discounts to existing customers. Big data can give you insight into product categories customers brought repeatedly and how price changes impact sales. With this information, the marketer can launch highly targeted, personalized and relevant campaigns while understanding macro product buying trends at the same time.
Let me know how your organization is using data to drive your business.
