Whether or not you really understand what it is, chances are you’ve at least heard of big data. It has become somewhat of a craze across nearly every industry—and for good reason. From healthcare and military to marketing and natural resource management, big data is helping decision-makers gather more information before deciding on a course of action.
In some cases, big data is actually pointing business leaders towards hidden information that is helping them take their production and marketing to new heights. Many modern businesses, especially successful ecommerce companies, would consider it blasphemy to not use big data in their day-to-day activities. It may go by the name of analytics, but in the end, it is all the same idea.
If you are considering incorporating big data into your business strategy, there are multiple ways it can make a difference. Big data can be a valuable asset for marketing strategy, research, and connecting and maintaining customer relationships.
Doing Your Homework
Perhaps one of the most interesting ways that big data can be used to enhance your ecommerce business is through its ability to help you do your research. This, of course, can occur in a number of different ways—from examining the strategies of past and current successful companies, to researching the best keywords and phrases to use to get you to the top of the searches, to learning how to incorporate data into your long-term business planning.
Researching strong keywords and phrases that will increase your likelihood of reaching the first page of search is one of the key factors in successful ecommerce. This is largely because over 90% of potential customers will only look at the first page of search results. Big data can help companies understand what potential customers are searching for when they don’t know exactly what they want and use that information to target and filter those customers to your website.
Big data can also make it easier to understand what your competition is doing to be so successful as well. What keywords are they targeting, and who is their niche demographic? How can you capitalize on that information and expand upon it? Likewise, what have companies done wrong in the past, and how can you avoid making the same mistakes?
Reaching the Crowd
One of the most common uses of big data in analytics is in marketing. The main idea is to use it to better understand which demographics are likely to use your product and target them in personalized ways. It can also mean looking at expanding into a new area and using big data to research your new audience to come up with targeted approaches that will intrigue them specifically.
Beyond that, big data can be used in your ecommerce company to diversify the channels where your messages are being sent out. For instance, you may be focusing your efforts on Facebook ads, but big data analytics may suggest that you split your focus and send ads to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. There will be fewer ads on each platform, but they may be more effective at reaching a broader audience.
Big data can also be called upon to help decision makers better understand how to improve upon their branding and website design. Ultimately, it is all about coming up with something memorable and easy to use. For example, a logo can be the single most important part of any marketing effort. People are visual creatures, and having something simple and memorable associated with your brand can help it spread like wildfire.
Maintaining Relationships
Arguably the most important aspect of any marketing strategy involves building and maintaining relationships with customers. Brand loyalty is nothing to shake your fist at; rather, it is a valuable aspect of any company’s market base. Loyal, happy customers are those who are going to give you some of the most powerful free advertising by suggesting your product and advocating for its use within their social circles.
One data-driven way this can be done is through the use of a customer relationship management system, or CRM. A CRM system is, in essence, a tool that allows companies to aggregate, organize, and analyze customer data to create a better customer relationship. It can connect data across departments, making for a much cleaner and easier compilation of customer information.
In many instances, customers want to be engaged, and they value instances where their opinions are taken into consideration. Big data can help you devise more personalized messages that ensure they are aware of how much your company values their continued loyalty to your products.
In Conclusion
The use of big data in business is becoming mainstream, and nearly essential to long-term success. The technology can help increase your ability to do research on appropriate keywords for you and your competitors. It can also help improve your marketing strategy by increasing customer engagement, personalization, and targeted ad development.