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How marketers can benefit from the power of business information

In today’s volatile economy, marketers are constantly looking for new ways to position a brand, products and services to new customers. The industry has been discussing a relatively new concept known as "Big Data" which is essentially the analysis and interpretation of business information – from multiple sources and in real time – to make better informed decisions. Interestingly, recent research revealed that 74% of public and private sector UK organisations are considering the adoption of big data analytics in some form. But why should they?

Big data can be used to gain real-time feedback on marketing activities to help accurately tailor campaigns to increase adoption and, ultimately, sales leads. It can also be used to really home-in on your target market. Recently, we provided detailed big data analysis to specify the exact target audience for a new credit card launch. Based on this insight the company was able to achieve an 87% marketing conversion rate, compared to 1-2% using traditional means.

Getting to grips with big data analytics offers endless opportunities to capitalise on new trends or shifts in sentiment in hours or days, instead of months or years. O’Reilly Media, for example, uses big data analytics to spot consumer trends and insights, analysing mountains of data to identify the hot topics for their next set of ‘how-to’ books and guides. What better insights could you ask for than those of your own customers and prospects?

Another example of the potential of big data for marketers lies in in the development of new revenue streams and business models. The New York Stock Exchange set up a company called NYSE Technologies to let customers have access, in real time, to every piece of historical transaction data and ‘tick’ ever to cross its systems. NYSE Technologies is now marketing this data as a service to other companies, who can model their market engagement using this real-time intelligence feed.

The opportunities open to marketers though big data analytics are infinite as they will enable you to ask the questions you never even knew to ask about your marketing campaigns – and lead you to some important insights into your competitive advantage, marketing strategy and potential to conquer new customer demographics. 

Mark Wheeler, marketing director UK & Ireland, EMC