Big Data Success Hinges on Putting the Customer First

Marketing (and big data!) is the engine that fuels company growth. To be effective, the marketer has to shift their focus from ensuring the success of their campaigns to ensuring the success of the overall business strategy. While there are many ways and approaches a marketer can take, a common thread that runs across all strategies is the “customer is first” motto.

Putting the customer first requires:

1. An in-depth understanding of each customer. For B2B marketers, this translates to an understanding of the customer’s customer, the actual end users.

2. Market intelligence to identify specific needs and the digital channels where their target customers would be found.

3. Communicating the value of the product to the customers in a way they understand and appreciate.

Where Big Data Comes In

Big data, when applied the right way, helps in all these endeavors. Big data analytics paints a complete picture of the customer, including their demographics and behavior, allowing the marketer to customize communication with each prospect. Big data makes an analysis of customer value chains, to identify specific segments of the prospects who are more likely in need of the product or service offered, allowing marketers to prioritize and customize their efforts accordingly.

Instead of prioritizing a prospect list based upon who is most likely to buy first or identifying prospects who display immediate signs of converting, big data can be applied at a deeper level to reveal subtle – but extremely valuable – differences in the needs of each prospect. For instance, “Prospect A” may require the product immediately but “Prospect B” may have a much larger order waiting, only their requirement may not be immediate. These insights allow the marketer to make a more educated prospect list.

Big data not only helps marketers to identify the channel and content types their customers prefer or show affinity to, but it also helps marketers make decisions, such as micro-market pricing, based on hard data. Additionally, big data provides the necessary insights to assist marketers in reaching out to prospects with the information they are most interested in via the channel they prefer – making the customer feel like a priority.

How are you putting your customers first with big data?