Highlights

  • Marketers need to adopt a wide-angle approach to data collection, which depends on behavioural trends, location-based analytics, and third-party insights.
  • With the help of valuable data, marketers will be able to identify a rise in demand and where the new customers are coming from.

With competitors discovering the potential of a rapidly growing market, the online world has become more congested, and big data analytics is fast becoming an integral part of businesses to beat market competition. How then can companies use the wealth of data to strategize their marketing campaigns?

According to data by Statista, the volume of big data market is set to cross USD 100 billion in the next five years. This indicates that early adopters of the marketing industry will likely lead the way toward greater prosperity in the age of “new normal” as e-commerce sees continuous growth away from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the market volume of big data witnessing significant growth, the pandemic will likely sustain this growth in the next decade. Marketers can, thus, strategize their moves beyond the e-commerce boom period.

Talking about the pharmaceutical industry, big data is not considered to be an essential part of the sales and marketing departments despite its increasing popularity. As a matter of fact, big data is almost twice as prevalent across this industry area as is artificial intelligence.

How big data adoption can benefit

Big data is a hot topic in the world of marketing today, but why has it gained so much importance recently? This technology can help businesses in many ways and help them strategize their digital marketing approaches. Some of the key pros of big data can be seen below:

  • Analyzing competitors: One can gain valuable insights into the campaigns launched by competitors and gain insights into customer behavior as well. This can give rich market insights as to what works and what does not in the current times when the pandemic has changed the dynamics.
  • Observing market trends: Today’s market is entirely different from what it used to be, but that does not mean that historical data can be used to understand the scope of the market in the future. However, demand forecasting and prescriptive analysis action can provide deep insights into customer behavior and predict when they are more likely to be interested in your product or service to help you prepare.
  • Forecasting profitability: Big data, when applied for targeted marketing, can help reduce ad spend, shorten supply chain cycle, and help marketing campaigns reach the right customers at the right time. This will lead to better business growth.

All of these advantages of big data adoption have been known for a while, but the growth of digital transformation and technology surrounding the industry has meant that high-quality insights and analytics have never been more accessible, powerful, and necessary.

The age of precision marketing

With the pandemic, more businesses have adopted precision marketing to gain advantages in a market that’s rapidly growing and changing.

However, the efficiency of precision marketing is determined by the data that’s driving it. For instance, when applied to modern models, old data will most likely deliver inaccurate insights. In the age of the new normal, marketers will, thus, adopt a more wide-angle approach to data collection. They would look for data that relies on behavioral trends and location-based analytics, and third-party insights on relevant businesses, customers, and competitors to help shape their in-house customer data.

With the help of valuable data, marketers will be able to identify a rise in demand and where the new customers are coming from. They can also see which customer profiles have upped their spending and where lapsed customers are going.

“Before it updated its modelling approach, for example, a retail chain could only tell how many customers it was gaining or losing,” wrote Chase Bibby, Jonathan Gordon, Gustavo Schuler, and Eli Stein in their McKinsey article. “The company then decided to pull in cell-phone data to scan changes in their competitors’ net traffic. That analysis showed that many of the customers they were gaining during the pandemic were coming from more expensive, specialty players, while those they were losing were heading to cheaper, larger-format players.”

“On the basis of this information, the retailer transformed its onboard and churn-prevention campaigns. They sent emails advertising higher-end offerings to customers transitioning from specialty stores while touting bargain-oriented products to value-oriented customers at risk of churn,” they added.

Big data also allows marketers to gain better insights into the performance of their competitors.  A comparison of third-party sales and campaign performance and their own numbers will allow companies to evaluate how well their campaigns were receive by their customers.

Marketers need to re-direct their strategy

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly opened the world of marketing where customers look forward to technology to offer seamless experience, but such expectations were prevalent before the pandemic, too.

Big data has always been a critical component of customer-facing e-commerce platforms like ASOS and Glossier.

In the age of GDPR, customers are very much aware of the importance of personal data. Subsequently, in return for agreeing to share personal information, they’re expectant of fine, personalized, and anticipatory experiences to suit their newfound expectations.

To fulfill the growing demands of the customer, marketers must do follow these strategies to ensure their experiences fit the bill:

  • They must ensure that brand scores are important for those on the customer-facing side – this will call for the incorporation of real-time analytics to ensure businesses never get back to the past to gain insights.
  • Use the correct data and technology to support the right use cases for the entire customer journey.
  • They must strive to align individual and collective goals at each stage of the customer journey to minimize the impact of functional silos within marketing, sales and customer service for customers.

Digital transformation has led to a booming e-commerce business as more competitors fight for conversations online. Add to this, consumer expectation has seen exponential growth.  Big data analytics is set to become a key component of digital marketing by 2027, allowing businesses to create personalized, unique experiences.