How Data-Driven Insights Can Spark Exceptional Business Marketing

When you ignore the big data in your midst, you risk losing out on big marketing opportunities. It's that simple.

The open web includes virtually endless information that you can access via APIs and feeds to better understand the market forces that impact your industry. What's more, your company likely generates plenty of data every day, from ordering trends per sales associate to website traffic to email tallies to social media interactions.

Startups are at their best when they're lean, fast and potent, able to change course rapidly as called for by the latest information. In this situation, it's important to keep your fingers on the pulse and make fast decisions–and then tweak your marketing strategies once again depending on how what the next round of assessments tells you.

If you're a marketer at a company already operating at full speed, on the other hand, then you need to not only look at what your marketing issues are now, but also what you hope to achieve in the longer term. This way, you can ensure the marketing solutions you choose fit into the larger company benchmarks and trajectory, all feeding toward the same goals.

Getting Started With Business Intelligence

“Data-driven metrics are key to moving your company beyond survival mode so you can focus on other business goals,” Future Technologies President and CEO Asha Saxena recently wrote. “Data can give you an edge over competitors and identify strengths that can take your company to the next level. But simply establishing data-driven practices for one or two aspects of your business isn't enough.”

Hence the need for insights to be available in real time, across devices, and accessible by everyone in marketing management.

Source: www.sisense.com/blog

Business leaders are frustrated with the obstacles involved with most data platforms, according to Eldad Farkash, who co-founded Sisense, a business analytics software company, to address a growing demand for more accessible tools for BI analysis. He says, “They're tired of waiting weeks or even months for their queries to be crunched (questions to be answered) and they're actively seeking alternatives for complex solutions.”

You don't need a supercomputer or ex-Googlers on your staff to get started with data-driven business intelligence. You just need to keep a few key guidelines in mind.

1. Data science isn't just for data scientists. Owners of businesses of all sizes have a host of data-crunching tools at their fingertips today. There are tools to help you identify the most important metrics to track, and then afterward to help you track them and pull meaning from the data. Clear Story Data, for example, offers options for the marketers among us who aren't IT experts.

2. Don't rely on the software of yesteryear for today's BI needs. Imagine the Internet of 2006–it's a far cry from our smartphone-connected, Internet-enabled, one-click-shopping daily lives today. The same goes for software and other solutions. You ditched your iPhone 3G back in 2011–why would an analysis platform first conceived in 2003 be any more useful? This is why AI-meets-BI platforms like IBM's Watson are so compelling.

3. Real-time analysis matters. Businesses today need to pivot quickly. Those that fail to respond to a problem–or even worse, fail to realize that the issue exists at all–are quickly left in the dust. Relying on analysts to clear overloaded query queues doesn't cut it anymore. Just watch how fast customers will take their business elsewhere, leaving you struggling to figure it out after they've signed on with your competition.

Source: www.blog.ventanaresearch.com

4. Ease of use is critical. You work from your phone, your tablet, your laptop, in the office and out, possibly all hours of the day. Having real time marketing numbers means seeing them when you, or anyone else on your team, needs to. Being required to connect via a VPN to an office network doesn't work when you're dashing between conferences and meetings with external stakeholders. Having an easy-to-use system that's accessible means making sure non-analysts can understand what's going on. Your marketing team members likely aren't data geeks, moreover, so being able to see at a glance what's working, and isn't, can help ensure you're all aligned and innovating rapidly.

5. Without good data, insights, and visualizations, you're shooting blind. Today's successful marketers craft their brands with stories, narratives that have beginnings and ends, and have personalities that consumers can grab hold of and literally buy into. When used well, data can be extremely effective at driving these stories. “It's not enough any more to say 'we make widgets,” notes Shift Thinking CEO Mark Bonchek. “With changes happening so quickly from so many directions–competition, regulation, technology, talent, customer behavior–it's easy for one's story to become generic or outdated.”

Unearth Your Data-Driven Insights

A decade or two ago, savvy marketing managers could rely on their guts, making educated guesses as to where things might go. Not anymore. With so much information becoming more and more accessible and crunchable daily, it's all about finding the best ways to harness the power of data.

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