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How to Use Big Data to Achieve Marketing Goals Combine your data, your people and your vision to make the right decisions for your business. Entrepreneur and marketing maverick Richard Branson once said1, “By turning challenges into opportunities, you will find success you never realized you were capable of achieving.” Branson may have been talking about business challenges, but he could just as easily have been referring to big data. Generally defined as massive and complex data sets that encompass information on everything from product purchases to online consumer behavior, big data can overwhelm—especially if you work in a field like marketing. While it holds an immense amount of value, Grow your business, one number at a time. Data is “inherently dumb”, says2 Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research at Gartner Research, which routinely reports on big data trends. According to Sondergaard, big data doesn’t do much of anything—unless you know how to use it. One way to use it is to grow your company and revenue. Every business has access to performance data like revenue reports, gross and net profits, and sales numbers. Most already rely on this information to anticipate sales and forecast revenue. But divvy it up and distribute this data to your executives—your CEO, CFO, COO, CMO, and VPs—and it becomes the launch pad for a highly effective sales and marketing strategy. Consider the story of Harry & David3. The hundred-year-old direct mail company was hit hard during the economic downturn in the mid 2000s, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011. But the retailer bounced back beautifully and even expanded4. How? According to Paul Lazorisak, the company’s former VP of Customer Marketing, the solution lay in sales data analysis and customer segmentation. Harry & David knew, for example, that a large segment of its customer base only buys around the holidays. “They love us at Christmas, but only at Christmas,” Lazorisak said5. “Try to have a conversation with them about Mother’s Day or Easter and you not only waste resources, you risk driving them away.” By leveraging information the company had on these and other customer groups, including demographic and transactional data, Harry & David was able to identify its most valuable customers, tailor messages to each segment to boost sales numbers, and even predict revenue. “The biggest change for the company is that it’s datadriven,” Lazorisak said. When you can extract sales trends and buyer behavior from larger data sets, your executives are better equipped to make decisions that will positively impact future sales. it’s cumbersome to manage. And when your hope is to meet then surpass your business goals, where do you even begin? Marketers may struggle to harness the deluge of business intelligence that swamps their desks daily, but it can be done. Start with those business goals. Identify the data needed to achieve them and call on your staff to leverage its strengths. It may feel like a challenge, but take it from Branson: you can turn big data’s complexities into an opportunity for success. Big data’s profit potential 2.5 QUINTRILLION Estimated bytes of data 6 created each day. 54% TOP PRIORITY 54% of digital marketers7 named big data in marketing as a top priority in 2015. 56% 56%+ marketing professionals8 saw revenue increase from data-driven marketing in Q1 2015. 80% NOTED POSITIVE CHANGE 80% of senior data and IT decision makers9 noted a positive change in revenue from using big data. 2 Mine data to improve your products. The potential of big data—or rather, manageable bites of it—to help you develop better products is huge. After all, the more you know about how customers use your goods and services, the more prepared you’ll be to meet their needs. That goes for everything from retirement planning solutions to Venti® dark roasts. Recently, global coffeehouse chain Starbucks10 revealed it used11 both order trends sourced from its baristas and industry data on at-home tea and coffee preferences to guide the development of its newest product line. The knowledge that 43% of its tea-drinking customers say no to sugar—along with many other findings—led the brand to create two new types of unsweetened ice tea K-Cups®. This kind of insight is readily available to all businesses. Start, as Starbucks did, with your own customer data. Pinpoint the parts that relate to product usage: preferences, time of day and frequency of purchase or use, and where your customers are likely to buy and consume your goods. Comparing individual product sales figures and customer reviews can expose sales patterns and help you decide what products should stay and what should go. Next, curate existing market and industry research. Competitive analysis can prove useful for zeroing in on your target—and you might just find that your focus isn’t currently on the product that needs the most support. When your aim is to enhance your product line or service offerings and develop a more effective go-to-market strategy, call on your CMO, VPs, directors, sales leaders, and account managers to take the reins. They should be able to boil all that customer data down into a rich product development and sales resource. Use big data for product development Sales figures User information Contact center data Customer service channels Customer reviews Sites/blogs for competitor analysis Industry journals Market research Social listening paladinstaff.com | 3 The operations connection: big data is the science that improves your process. Imagine this scenario: You’ve used big data to expand your customer base and improve your products. Business is booming. Then all at once you find yourself asking whether you’re prepared to meet increased demand. Business process management and workforce planning are right up there with big data as major challenges facing businesses today. But coping with them is often just a matter of knowing what’s coming around the bend. When your goal is to avoid a talent shortage, analyze sales and production data to gauge whether you’re effectively balancing supply and demand. When you want to improve operations, assess data on production cycles, time to delivery, and staff performance. Pair your operations managers and directors with your data analysts to increase productivity and whittle down overhead—and make sure your team is ready to respond to change. Big data’s impact on your operations can’t be overstated. You’re likely to find untold opportunities to turn that business intelligence into a better business, whether that entails hiring more staff or streamlining your production process. As of last year, 43% of marketers controlled their customer data . 14 Build the brand you always imagined. To understand the importance of big data to branding, look no further than your marketing team. Whether you employ a branding agency or produce your promotional efforts in-house, the brand managers, content marketers, SEO and PPC experts, and graphic designers tasked with increasing awareness of your brand build their campaigns on a foundation of first- and third-party data. Studies show12 that US marketers spent about $11.5 billion on data and datarelated solutions last year, up half a billion dollars from 2014. That’s because boosting awareness requires a deep understanding of your customers and how they interact with your brand. Before you can shake someone’s hand, you need to know they’re in the room with you. Data such as site visits, ad views, clicks, survey responses, and focus group results tells you how, where and when to engage your customers so you can devise an effective brand strategy, determine the optimal adverting mix, and succeed on social media. With just 27% of C-level executives13 currently confident that their organizations make “highly effective” use of data, the time is right to tap into your marketing department’s existing big data expertise and supplement your team with additional knowledge as needed. 4 Make your customers smile. In our modern world, where consumers have countless brand and product choices at their disposal and can make or abandon a purchase in the blink of an eye, a positive customer experience is paramount. When it’s sliced and diced, big data can be used to determine whether your customer experience meets consumers’ high standards or is in need of improvement. Here, you’ll want to look at data like web usage, time spent interacting with the various sections of your site, the path your visitors took to get there, the feedback they leave, customer surveys, and call center complaints. How many clicks does it take for site viewers to reach their desired product page? How long before the typical customer support ticket is resolved? This information holds the key to a more relevant and personalized customer experience—and in many cases allows companies to identify problems and make necessary upgrades before too much damage is done. Your digital designers, digital producers, user experience team, SEO experts, and social media managers are best suited for applying your customer experience data in a way that benefits both your company and your target audience. This data will also tell you whether you’ve got the technology needed to improve customer experience— and the right staff to use it. The task of managing customer interactions may fall to many different members of your team, but big data mobilizes them and allows them to take what they need to succeed. 92% of marketers believe that integrating data across teams can lead to improvements in customer service. 15 paladinstaff.com | 5 Build a better brand reputation with the help of customer comments. How much do you currently know about how your brand is perceived by your customers? When your goal is to build a good reputation for your company, the answer is found in online survey results, Twitter polls, replies to your Facebook posts, comments on your YouTube videos, and purchase intent. Mining social media for customer comments provides a window into brand sentiment, while online reviews and sales data can point to aspects of your business in need of improvement. This is the kind of data that’s best analyzed by your public relations managers and customer service team—though there are marketing applications as well. For example, have your SEO team run the numbers on search phrases that pair your company and product names with key words like “I love” and “I hate.” You can use the results to create a more holistic picture of your customers’ past and current impressions of your company, and then adjust your advertising messages accordingly. The information you This may seem extreme, but Buffer is a social-sharing service—so why not put the emphasis on sharing? The company really wanted to create a culture of transparency17 while building and maintaining a loyal customer base. Being candid about your business isn’t always easy, especially when things aren’t going so well, but Buffer stands by its approach18 stating, “Transparency can not only survive during times of hardship—it can help you thrive.” Buffer now has a reputation for being real and honest, which studies show19 consumers rank as the most important behavior in a brand. 6 glean from your customer data might lead you to revisit your customer relationship strategy or email outreach program, both of which might benefit from tweaked messaging that puts the emphasis on trust, your brand’s philosophy and values, and your dedicated employees. You simply won’t know until you put all that data into buckets and sort through it, one set at a time. Typically, reputation data is used internally to refine your brand behind the scenes. But what would happen if you took it public? Social media management software company Buffer did just that and has been reaping the benefits ever since. Since the company’s early days, Buffer has shared data online related to how its customers use its products. In 2014, it went a step further and published its employees’ salaries. Buffer now even posts its monthly revenue16. Before you apply your data for reputation management purposes, work with your PR and marketing teams to develop a strategy for using it right. Coupled with the invaluable human insight and experience of your staff, big data can make great brands greater. Big data = big competition 64% of senior decision makers say big data is “changing traditional business boundaries and enabling non-traditional providers to move into their industry.” Source: Big & Fast Data: The Rise of Insight-Driven Business, Capgemini 53% 65% expect “startups enabled by data” to become an increasing source of competition. of senior decision-makers believe they could become irrelevant and/or uncompetitive if they fail to take advantage of big data. Data can put you ahead of the game. Regardless of how and where you put big data to work, one thing is certain: arming yourself with an effective strategy and skilled workers who can manage its complexities can put your business ahead of the curve. Knowing the intricacies of your customers, their behavior, how they use your products, how well they know your brand, and how they perceive it provides total insight into your current success and potential for growth. Having access to business intelligence from external sources like industry and market news reports, technological advancements, and consumer behavior means your business analysts and market researchers can identify your place within the market and determine how to get—and stay—ahead of the game. When you break it down, big data is really just information in search of its purpose. It can be effectively managed, used to form goals and leveraged to make prudent In the retail world, top brands are investing in big data strategy, business expertise in the form of an experienced team, and a data-driven culture. Enterprise big data analytics Teradata reports20 that big data allows leading retailers to anticipate seasonal trends, assess local buying preferences, optimize shopper experiences, and boost engagement through tailored offers. In finance, meanwhile, big data can be used to target services and manage risk for “increased operational efficiency and business performance21.” Whatever your industry, look to big data to give you that coveted edge or retain your position as an established leader in your field. marketing decisions that help you reach said goals—if you have a vision for your business and the people in place to realize it. paladinstaff.com | 7 Conduct an internal analysis of your staff, and let us help you fill in the gaps. Paladin provides recruiting expertise across marketing, communications, creative, and digital platforms. We can find the talent you need, anytime and anywhere. Get in touch. SOURCES 1. Richard Branson, “Turn Challenges Into Opportunities,” Virgin.com, February 24, 2016. 2. Press release, “Gartner Says It’s Not Just About Big Data; It’s What You Do With It: Welcome to the Algorithmic Economy,” October 5, 2015. 3. Harry & David, harryanddavid.com, 2016. 4. “Analytics bears fruit,” sas.com. 5. “Analytics bears fruit,” sas.com. 6. IBM Big Data & Analytics Hub, “The Four V’s of Big Data.” 7. Emarketer.com PDF, “Big Data Roundup,” May 2015. 8. Emarketer.com PDF, “Big Data Roundup,” May 2015. 9. Emarketer.com, “Marketers Are Noticing Benefits from Big Data,” October 1, 2015. 10. Starbucks.com, 2016. 11. Sarah Whitten, CNBC.com, “Starbucks knows how you like your coffee,” April 6, 2016. 12. Al Urbanski, dmnews.com, “Big Money for Big Data: Marketers Will Spend $11.5 Billion in 2015,” February 27, 2015. 13. Anne Fisher, Fortune.com, “Why Big Data Isn’t Paying Off for Companies (Yet),” February 5, 2016. 14. News Release from teradata.com, “Teradata Global Survey: 90 Percent of Marketers Say Individualized Marketing is the Future,” January 28, 2015. 15. News Release from teradata.com, “Teradata Global Survey: 90 Percent of Marketers Say Individualized Marketing is the Future,” January 28, 2015. 16. Metrics overview, buffer.baremetrics.com, March 6, 2016-April 5, 2016. 17. Carolyn Kopprasch, “5 Years of Openness (So Far!) – Buffer’s Transparency Timeline,” December 10, 2015. 18. Courtney Seiter, “The Best Time For Transparency Is When It’s The Hardest,” October 28, 2015. 19. Geoff Beattie, “2014 Authentic Brands Study: The Age of Authenticity,” October 29, 2014. 20. Bigdata.teradata.com, “Keys To Cross-Channel, Retail, & Big Data Success.” 21. Jessie Zhang, atkearney.com, “Big Data: The Next Leading Edge in the Financial Industry,” September 2014. paladinstaff.com 888.PALADIN