6 Ways Big Data Analytics Can Add More Value to Your Marketing

Unlocking the potential of big data in marketing is key to many aspects of your strategy succeeding. From improving loyalty and engagement to making informed pricing decisions, you simply can’t afford to overlook big data analytics.

1. Knowing your audience better

Understanding customer behavior allows you to service them better and makes your operations more efficient. It's never been easier to get to know your audience than through big data analytics, which can tell you everything you need to know to harness the benefits of customer insight.

Once the domain of big financial institutions, big data is now accessible to other businesses through cloud computing and other technologies. It offers the potential to increase revenue per customer and streamline operations in a way that benefits both the organization and your customers.

2. More targeted campaigns

The biggest way that big data can help in marketing is by taking away the guesswork, enabling you to create targeted campaigns. Giving your customers exactly what they want has myriad advantages and reduces the need to rely simply on reaching as many people as possible to get some returns.

Instead, putting your analysis into effect means you can micro-target your true audience at the time when they’re nearly ready to buy. An example of this approach is to create personas based on the personalized data collected through cookies. These crumbs of information can provide a clear picture of the needs of your customers when gathered together.

With the right analytics tool, it’s possible to create actionable insights from big data and understand how to pitch your campaigns. For instance, targeting specific buyers' purchasing patterns, interest in products, behaviors and capacity to purchase makes far more sense than casting the net wide in the hope of luring in customers.

3. Better customer service

Knowing what your customers need enables you to provide better service, which has multiple benefits. Those that are happy are more likely to purchase more, return to your business and advocate for it in the future, leading to greater volumes of sales.

Big data in marketing has also facilitated the development of chatbots, which have become useful ways to automate conversations with customers. You can use this software to resolve queries and provide information without needing to rely on staff to field inquiries all the time.

4. Improve pricing decisions

There’s always multiple factors taken into consideration when calculating the optimal price to charge for a product or service and this can be subject to human error. Automating prices using big data means everything from how much competitors are charging to the current economic climate can be considered and given the appropriate weighting.

As well as finding the correct price point, this helps free up time and resources that can be used elsewhere. With most organizations already possessing the data to make these calculations, it would be remiss not to use it.

5. Creating better content

Content marketing is crucial to your strategy, but there’s no point in creating media that doesn’t appeal to your customers. Many organizations have some idea what their audience may be interested in, but without basing it on data the results are far from assured.

The likes of Facebook and Google use big data to point their users in the direction of the content that’s most in line with their interests. Not tapping into this can put organizations at a disadvantage compared to their competitors and mean their content doesn’t get traffic that converts.

6. A/B testing

Partnering big data with A/B testing means you can be more agile in optimizing your campaigns, adapting your strategy to incorporate what’s been proven to work. In addition, closing down elements that aren’t performing as expected and reallocating the associated resources to areas that are doing well will improve your conversion rate.

This technique can be rolled out when A/B testing parts of your website, marketing emails, newsletter sign-ups, banner clicks, site searches or mobile calls to action (CTAs). Once you’ve collected enough data, you can be confident you’re using these channels to get the best results.