Big Data and your marketing strategy

Source: Dilbert.com

Big Data became one of the biggest buzz words of 2012, and it looks like 2013 isn’t going to be any different. Data is being created at such a rate that each day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data (IBM).

It’s no surprise that the rise and popularity of social networks contributes to the data increase. Other data sources include web logs, search indexing, photo archives, video archives, e-commerce and scientific research.

Wal-Mart handles more than a million customer transactions each hour*. OK, so you may not have that quantity of data to collect, connect and analyse! However, you may already struggle to get your head around the pure quantity of data at your fingertips. You may also be struggling with the quality of your data.

Research by Experian QAS shows that achieving data accuracy continues to be a challenge for companies, with nine out of 10 companies believing that their customer data may contain inaccuracies **.

But with 89 per cent of respondents reporting that departmental funds have been wasted because of data inaccuracy, can you afford for data strategy to not be on your agenda?

By focusing on data quality we can help drive efficiently, growth, profitability and customer engagement, all of which are undoubtably part of your company’s goals.

Data should be the responsibility of everyone within your organisation - this isn’t a matter simply left for the IT department. Data quality awareness and staff training are a good place to start your data quality journey. A project to audit, structure and clean-up your data could see some quick wins. Followed by implementing processes to introduce a long term fix to the data gathering issues, to ensure the quality of new data remains high.

Don’t think in terms of big or small. Instead think about your data strategy and how it can support your marketing strategy. Without a strategy in place to collect and analyse data, big or small, your marketing efforts will be going to waste.

* Source: Big Data meets big data analytics. SAS
** Source: The data revolution: liberating lost budgets. Experian QAS April 2012.