When you look at marketing today, you’ll probably run across the concept of big data several times. What was once a fringe, emerging field has proven to be quite useful for large companies looking to extract insights from large volumes of data.
However, while large companies can easily use their massive lakes of data, start-ups are at a distinct disadvantage since the volume of data they have (and the means to process it) is a lot more limited. Luckily, due to advancements in big data processing and analytics, even start-ups can now try to create insights from data using modern methods. This article will explore how a start-up could potentially leverage big data to give it insights for rapid growth.
Understanding Big Data
Big Data, as defined by Oracle, is a massive store of data derived from complex data sets. However, for a start-up, we can’t start from Big Data without understanding where this data comes from. For this, we must look at the practice known as data mining since it provides the best way for start-ups to generate insights from existing data sets. Sisense reminds us that data mining is a methodology allowing businesses to extract usable information from a series of raw data sets.
When a start-up first gets its legs under it, the availability of data that it has may be quite limited. However, using data mining can develop connections between data sets and uncover brand new areas to explore when it comes to the data. This process is the source of the big data that a start-up needs to refine its direction.
For example, if a start-up knows what sort of content engages its core audience the best, it can produce more of that type of content to draw in more people who prefer it. Big Data can have a lot more impact than just this on a business.
How Big Data Influences Start-up Marketing
There was a time in marketing where professionals did everything by guesswork. The first attempt at a campaign had as much a chance of failing as succeeding. However, by looking at the engagement numbers of those campaigns, businesses could better refine their marketing to appeal to the core audience they wanted to. The problem that existed back then was that there wasn’t enough reliable data to make those decisions.
If we fast forward to today, we realize that the incoming data is far more than anyone would dream about a mere twenty years ago. With the insights that modern data affords us, we can easily spot trends in user behaviour. Marketing campaigns of today have also increased in complexity.
There are myriad channels and approaches that businesses can take to locate and interest their target audience. However, since we have numbers, we don’t have to play the guessing game anymore. Analysing data from current or previous campaigns (sometimes from competitors) can give us a good overview of the audience, the market, and where the buyers are located. This approach is far more efficient if a start-up uses Big Data to help in its analysis.
Big Data Assisting Today’s Marketers
Business costs can be exorbitant. We’re not just talking about custom business logo design or the cost of overheads. There’s also the advertising budget to consider. Big Data has the potential to help businesses reduce their acquisition cost per customer. Standard analytics methods have problems in detecting engagement because of how they make a note of visitors.
If you implement a Google Analytics plugin fresh out of the box, likely, you won’t get any real insight into the visitors to your site. It’s not because GA doesn’t work, but because these tools need refinement to function the way they were intended. Data scientists can help businesses streamline their analytics tools to make sense out of nonsense. Hiring one is far more efficient than trying to figure out how to get it to work yourself.
Start-ups already use a plethora of methods to streamline their marketing. Already, businesses have invested in A/B testing, Kissmetrics, and a whole slew of other data mining tools to help them get a picture of their website visitors and engagement.
Social media sites also offer in-depth metric analysis for businesses who want to drill down into what makes their business attractive to their core audience. All of these tools provide raw data, the Big Data we’ve been talking about, but on its own, it’s like having a storehouse of grain but no millstone to make bread.
Growth Comes From Insights
Start-ups are some of the most rapidly growing enterprises in the world today. Start-up Genome notes that the industry creates over $3 trillion in value to date. Yet, the unfortunate truth is that unless start-ups embrace technology, they will fail. Tech is what allows smaller companies to compete against massive firms.
Big Data is another support that can help start-ups narrow the gap between themselves and the industry leaders. Collecting and using it should be a priority for every start-up entrepreneur.
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