VALUE OF

USING BIG DATA

HOW-TO GUIDE
 Value of Using Big Data
HOW-TO GUIDE

Traditionally, marketers connected with individuals through surveys, focus groups or mall inter-
cept surveys. Today, we have come quite far from tradition, finding ways to accumulate much
more information about the intimate behaviors of our consumers.

Think of yourself as a consumer, going about your regular day. You communicate using your cell
phone, post to Facebook, send out a Tweet, browse the internet, make purchases, share music,
search for something of interest online.

As a consumer, you wouldn’t think twice about those daily activities. However, as a marketer, we
realize that through these actions, customers are creating their own enormous trails of data. The
data represent a current hot topic for marketers: Big Data.

By definition, Big Data is a large dataset so complex it defies processing and analysis using existing
database-management tools. Big Data comes in many forms, both structured and unstructured,
such as web-based digital images, online videos, blogs, chats, forums, internal data, GPS signals
and purchase transaction records, to name a few. An overwhelming amount of data exists – how
can marketers manage this data and use it to their advantage?

What Is Big Data?

Big Data refers to having a dataset so large and complex that you cannot process it using the
regular database management tools. The definition of Big Data, however, is a moving target.
There is no specific limit on data size to qualify as “big,” and it can depend on the organization
managing the data set’s capabilities.

Big Data can come from many different sources, both internal and external, including but not
limited to sensors, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase transaction
records, MP3’s, online sharing, cell phone records, etc. Companies are creating a vast amount of
data as it becomes more accessible through these sources.

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Describing Big Data
The three common factors for describing Big Data are the 3 V’s: high volume, high velocity and
high variety. Big Data is essentially information that requires new forms of processing to inte-
grate with decision-making, discovering new opportunities and optimizing the process. Here is
the description of the 3 V’s:

Volume (Large amounts of data) – A very large amount of data is becoming accessible to marketers.
This volume of data provides opportunity for those who develop the capacity to process it.

Velocity (Speed) – Velocity increases as the rate at which data flows into the organization
grows. The rate at which the data is coming or changing, and how quickly it’s used to create
real value. With so many sources of information, data is available at increasingly rapid speeds.

Variety (Types) – Diverse data types are both structured; examples include movie files, images,
documents, text, call center notes, geo-location data and others in an increasingly wide variety.

Three Key Advantages for Marketers

Advantage #1: ROI

Marketing has always been a difficult discipline to demonstrate ROI and it’s under constant pres-
sure to demonstrate true business value. Big Data analysis is proving invaluable at helping drive
business decisions across various organizations and having a role in improving ROI.

Big Data allows marketers to capitalize on unmet needs in key market segments and can facilitate
real-time ROI measurement. For example, spending on digital marketing, projected to significantly
increase, is being fueled by the ability to demonstrate marketing ROI using Big Data. This increase
also provides us with more data to analyze, placing more beneficial research at our disposal.

3 VALUE OF USING BIG DATA HOW-TO GUIDE

Advantage #2: Creates Value & New Opportunities

Marketers create value using Big Data in many ways by allowing greater information transparency,
making insights from that data more accessible and usable for marketers.

Big Data analytics can expose variability by collecting more accurate and detailed performance
information. Using Big Data, you can achieve more precise segmentation of customers that in turn
lets you tailor your products and services to better meet their needs. Big Data analytics creates
value by enabling data-driven decision-making on a level and scale previously not possible
because of the sophisticated analytics involved.

One of the greatest advantages of Big Data is the ability to create an optimized and personal-
ized marketing strategy. The analysis of Big Data allows marketers to create highly personalized
marketing approaches based on what you can understand about individual customers and their
buying patterns. Furthermore, this level of analysis can provide insights that allow marketers to
more effectively allocate their marketing budgets and achieve a higher ROI.

Predictive analytics using Big Data can even help organizations understand how customers will
respond to a proposed price change. The exploitation of Big Data provides organizations with
tremendous opportunities to gain competitive advantages.

Advantage #3: Improving Analysis

Incorporating data from many different sources can help improve the process and detect prob-
lems more quickly. Adding an analysis of social media to the mix, you can understand how their
customers feel about your product or service, which is remarkably valuable.

Analyzing Big Data trends can help develop strategies with the messages you can deliver and
when. For example if you analyze the data from coupons sent out and merge that information with
regional data, demographic data and average spend data, you can start to paint a picture of who
your best customers are and how best to connect with them in the future.

4 VALUE OF USING BIG DATA HOW-TO GUIDE

Challenges
Although there are many opportunities for marketers to take advantage of big data, there are also
a number of challenges presented. The main challenges include

Volume – The sheer volume of data presents a challenge in how to properly manage all the data
and ensure the amount of storage space is available. The proper management and analytics
software is required to analyze all the data. In addition, the right analytics skills are needed to
perform the analysis and deliver results.
Importance – Another challenge is capturing which data is most important, finding the most
important data as it happens and delivering it to the right people. Once it is discovered,
marketers may find it challenging to find the meaning of the important data and make use of it.
Harmonization – Data harmonization is often a challenge. Organizations typically have
volumes of data in different formats, structures and databases, making it difficult if not impos-
sible to have a single, harmonized view of it all. Harmonizing data from disparate data sources
is often a barrier to Big Data analytics success.
Security – Issues with security, privacy, cloud storage and information theft are all issues that
have been linked to the age of big data.

Although there are risks and challenges involved with analyzing Big Data, when managed properly,
the insights marketers can obtain from this data provide marketers with a significant advantage.

Bottom Line
By using Big Data, organizations can seize the opportunity to improve marketing ROI, develop
new opportunities, tailor promotions to specific target markets and help optimize marketing
strategy. Big Data is a game-changer with the capability to drive better decisions while disrupting
many industries.

It is a real and growing discipline, often housed with the Business Intelligence unit of a company.
Successful companies are using Big Data and analytics to compete more effectively, because it
provides one of the best ways to deeply understand and engage customers in a way that inspires
greater loyalty.

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 Action Plan
STEP 1 - Vision

Align Goals with the B2B

1 Vision
Data Management Guide

Success with Big Data begins

with articulating a vision for
2 Skills
leveraging it.

For most organizations, this

means harnessing relevant
data and using it to make the
Architecture & better decisions.
3 Systems
Your vision should lead
to aligning any Big Data
initiative with specific
business goals.

4 Pilot

5 Business Case
B2B Data Management Best Practices Guide

VIEW RESOURCE

6 VALUE OF USING BIG DATA HOW-TO GUIDE

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