Thanks for reading my blog post, friend! We are friends now, right? After all, I know where you work, your preferred Internet browser, how you made your way to this web page and what you ate for dinner last night. Okay, so I don’t know what you had for dinner, but it’s likely that some savvy marketer out there has a pretty good idea.
Big data has officially exploded and according to a recent IBM survey, the majority of CMOs are struggling to keep up. It’s an ironic notion -too much data for marketers. Granted, it’s an incredibly challenging time to be a CMO, or any marketer for that matter. With so much data out there, it’s a challenge not only to collect it, but to also weed through and disseminate the pertinent information.
According to Gartner, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs by 2017. If you find this shocking or are skeptical, I suggest that you start to adopt a new mindset. As simple as it seems, it’s not the biggest or strongest brands that will thrive in this new era of big data: it’s those that are able and willing to evolve. Are you evolving?
Below are just three examples of how On Ideas is embracing this new landscape in partnership with our clients. Each of these topics will get future blog posts of their very own, but for now, this will provide a glimpse into the power of big data.
Advanced Customer Segmentation
Customer segmentation is certainly not a new marketing tactic, but technology and big data have come together to super charge the information that is available to collect and analyze. We work with partners such as Acxiom to gain deeper insights and understanding into each customer. This allows us to look for audience similarities, differences and other patterns that can be grouped into various segments. Ultimately, we are able to create more engaging and addressable advertising in laser-targeted communications channels – personalized messaging with little waste. The days of simply targeting adults 25-54 or people with household income of $100K+ are quickly coming to an end.
Monitoring
Only 26% of CMOs track blogs, 42% track third-party review sites and 48% track consumer review sites (pertinent to their brands). These results from the IBM Survey elicited the biggest reaction around the web. Many have portrayed CMOs as being from a different era and “not getting it,” while others chastised them for thinking too big picture and not being willing to dive into the weeds. Personally, at this point in time, I think most senior marketers are simply victimized by a lack of time and manpower. Those who do have the capability to actively monitor, or partner with an agency like ours, are certainly at a competitive advantage.
Word-of-mouth is still king and social media, blogs, review sites and forums are word-of-mouth on steroids… and they are big data. It’s not the neatly arranged tables and rows of data that we’re accustomed to; it’s an almost infinite amount of unstructured data, which is certainly a challenge.
Using a combination of free and paid tools (ex. Radian6,) we are able to break down this data and organize it into only the pieces you truly need to know. But knowing is only half the battle, which is why we then take those insights and figure out how to apply them practically to your businesses’ needs. Many huge social opportunities are hidden right in front of brands; they just need effective resources to help discover those answers.
Demand Side Platforms (DSPs)
Our third example shows how big data is being leveraged to completely change the landscape of digital media buying. Traditionally, digital media has been bought through ad exchanges or directly from website publishers. These options didn’t provide full transparency, real-time optimization, and were generally quite cumbersome. In a nutshell, DSPs offer complete flexibility in targeting, optimization and reporting. Better yet, their algorithms and real-time-bidding platforms are designed to automatically funnel dollars into more effective and efficient ad placements (whether it be a more effective creative size, website, geography, etc.). DSPs are proven to consistently, and often dramatically, drive higher ROI versus “traditional” methods of digital media buying because they are designed to only buy the most valuable impressions. Just another example of big data driving efficiency.
Need help leveraging your data? Have a question or want more information? Think this is a bunch of newfangled hogwash? Leave a comment below and let’s chat! After all, I know who you are…
The issue is how do you monitor what is being said about you. And if you could what do you do with the info. Traditional software is not set-up to do either well.