Looking for a way to affirm if your marketing efforts are outdated or not? I’ve developed a very simple litmus test you can administer immediately.
Answer the following question: Are you leveraging ‘Big Data’ in your advertising?
If the answer is yes— you’re in the clear (but keep reading)!
If no… you’ve got some work to do.
Big data has become one of those buzzwords that, upon mention, usually produces pretty dichotomized responses— being either a major threat to some, or a massive opportunity for others. One thing that’s for sure— businesses that are leveraging it are growing, and fast.
50% faster to be exact.
So what is it, exactly…
In its most dry form, big data is essentially just a compilation of a large amount of information coming from multiple sources; like satellites, microphones, cameras, credit records and more (and yes, all those things are being tracked).
Every bill you pay or don’t pay, every frappuccino from Starbucks you scan into your MyFitnessPal app, the amount of visits you actually make into the gym, what gas you put in your car, your preference of AirBnBs over hotels and even what type of toilet paper you prefer is all being tracked and compiled into tiny little behavior profiles all over the web.
How’s it gathered?
This information is usually gathered in one of three ways; either by directly asking users through opt-ins or lead forms; through tracking softwares like the ones in our smartphones; or by using things like cookies that collect more and more data on us as they follow you from site to site.
While this may scare the living hell out of you, don’t let it— not because big data is something that’s unexploitable and could never be used for negative means (because of course it could), but because you’d have to remove some of the most major conveniences of life as we know from your daily routine in order to avoid data being collected on you, and it’s just not worth it. More often than not, this information is being used to make life easier, like how fitness apps are selling their data to city planners to do things like create bike lanes in avidly biked areas, or by advertisers to target their creative more effectively.
The easier life becomes as we increasingly automate our day to day— the harder of an argument you’re going to have against big data. So— you can throw your smartphone against a wall, delete your Facebook and start carrying around cash again… or— you could recognize the potential power available to you as a business owner through data.
How can I use it for my business?
Capable of helping you reach a multitude of outcomes, the first step you need to achieve in successfully using big data is identifying your business goal. Whether you’re trying to sell more of a certain service, or get the eye of a new audience, you need to know where to direct your momentum.
In recognizing your goal, you’ll identify your audience for this particular goal. Big data has the potential to offer you insights on this group so you can better speak to and with them.
Understanding your ultimate goal helps illuminate what data points could potentially help you get there. While there’s always the tried and true metrics like website visits, video views or clicks; we’re living during a time where we can think bigger.
For example, if you were looking to earn more foot traffic to your storefront— geographical data using mobile tracking IDs can be extremely advantageous data to leverage. You can run ads specifically to people who come within your target geographic range.
Or if you were looking for more engagement on your website or profiles, you can get data on search terms used to reach you. Leverage this information to do things like increase your SEO value!
There are two simple ways to start using this resource that can affect some immediate change in the standing of your organization in the market.
1- Magnify Your Message
You can use the predictive powers (no magic here, just pure knowledge by way of behavioral data), available in your data to better leverage your advertising efforts.
Optimize your ad spend with more precise targeting. This is going to grow increasingly important if you’re leveraging social media, as Facebook’s Partner Categories information goes away completely on October 1st. All that fantastic interest-based targeting is going to be gone completely, and the campaigns you have utilizing it currently are going to need new insights to reach your audience.
Once you’ve chosen a data source, whether that’s information you’ve been gathering from lead forms on your website or purchasing data from a third party, you can extract this data in list form and can be uploaded into the backends of the platforms you’re using for your marketing; like Google, Facebook and others.
This means you can avoid what I like to call ‘spraying and praying,’ which is throwing your ads out there and hoping your true audience sees them.
Instead— you can utilize big data to ensure you’re reaching them.
2- Improving Customer Experience
Customer data affords the information that allows for better decision making when it comes to the customer experience. It becomes easier to customize the experience of working with your company to better suit individuals actually utilizing your services when you can see how they interact with you, and aren’t solely basing your decisions off of what you think it is they want.
Avoid being a part of the luddite demographic by responsibly taking advantage of the mountains of data available at your fingertips. Challenge your team to utilize their findings in innovative and creative ways through brand new campaigns and sequences and see the benefits of big data for yourself.
(Forbes)
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