Marketers, financiers and businesses have been collecting data since the stone-age. The fact that data is constantly collected around consumer behavior is nothing new. What has given velocity to the phrase “Big Data” is our revolutionary ability to synthesize, understand, and apply the findings within the data sets we aggregate.
As software and the Internet continue to empower the brave new world in which we live, data is mounting and being used to customize a tailored experience for the individual. You are no longer an 18-34 male, with one dog, and an income between $35,000-51,000. You are Jason, age 26, with your adopted Bernese Mountain dog, “Tycoon” (“Ty” for short), and you work for an emerging maple syrup conglomerate (making $46,500 per year) in Bridgeport, New York.
In a world where data has become democratized, enterprise marketers have come to realize that the information flows both ways. The shifting power dynamic between buyer and seller has empowered consumers to a higher level of awareness, readiness, and confidence with each purchase. In fact, according to Jeffrey Cohen and Kipp Bodnar, the authors of The B2B Social Media Book, buyers are 60% through the purchasing process before they ever speak with a sales person.
The rise of the educated prospect creates a need for marketers to become more proactive throughout their marketing funnel to reach consumers at the right time, with the right content, and in the right medium. As buyers flow in and out of the marketing funnel, coming in contact with the company at different stages (awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, advocacy), proactive marketers are optimizing their campaigns to identify the lead’s stage in the marketing funnel, captivate them with relevant content, and ultimately convert them to customers when they are ready to buy. In this way, big data provides the perfect opportunity to engage your leads with the content that is most relevant to the prospect’s stage in the buying process.
As both sides of the table are more empowered with data, marketers are now smarter, more dynamic, and proactive in their marketing campaigns. Big data delivers insight not just into who your customers are, but where they are, what they want, and how and when they want to be contacted. By combining real-time insights with big data, you are closing the loop between you and your customer. You understand where they are in the marketing funnel, you are providing the content that drives the momentum, and you are humanizing your brand to create lasting relationships and life-long customers.
C-level executives continue to tie marketing spend to sales revenue, and thus marketers are finding increased means to delineate marketing return on investment. According to Gartner, enterprises that invest in big data technologies will outperform those competitors by 20% in every major financial metric by the year 2015.
These statistics are driven by the fact that marketers are able to proactively implement campaigns in which they have a high confidence level in the success of their message, timing, and delivery. Today’s marketer has transitioned from A/B testing his way to the magic solution to a “know before you go” analytical mindset. Big data and real-time insights into more effective content creation are empowering marketers, increasing their bottom line, and delivering a higher ROI on each campaign they implement.
Interested in more enterprise marketing data? Download our Fortune 500 Instagram Report to learn why Instagram adoption is on the rise among the world’s biggest brands.