How big data is changing business, and more specifically marketing, in 2017?
In a word: completely.
Collecting data has never been a problem. It’s streamed towards us constantly. And the technologies we develop are inherently collecting more and more – big data is getting bigger and bigger.
What’s changed in 2016 and be a centerpiece in 2017 is the way we use big data. The entirety of 2017 will be resting on practical technologies processing big data to fuel personalized content.
The tools that we’re covering in this series are turning anonymized huge datasets into micro-level human interactions.
In 2017 We’ll Be Using Everyone’s Big Data to Capture Individual Customers
Everyone means no one. We need to pick a lane and create personal from the impersonal. Big data is the source from which we can actualize hyper-personalized communication for individual customers.
When it first came into play, big data was mostly used to provide a high-level overview of large market trends. Think detecting currents in the ocean.
In 2016 we started to learn not only the importance of hyper-personalization but also developing the tools to harness the power of big data for it. We already knew the currents; now we are able to catch the fish.
Everyday practicality of technology is always pointed toward the personalized micro-experience… Click To Tweet As we mentioned last time:
You need to be both macro and micro and everything in between to succeed.
Aligning Big Data to the Three Pillars of Marketing in 2017
Big data provides the building blocks for success on all three levels:
- customer journey mapping and hyper-personalization
- content marketing natively
- engagement
2017 will be about overlaying and syncing isolated datasets. The generated personalization focal points will be beacons for marketers. They connect the individual human moments into the larger brand experience.
Using Big Data to Create Customer Journey Maps and Inform Hyper-personalization
If email is the foundational technology in the major sections of a customer journey map, big data is the terrain onto which the map is overlaid.
Just like a geographical map, big data creates the texture to which we align our content production:
- We build roads (lead generation funnels) that naturally follow the terrain.
- We establish settlements (content platforms) where the conditions are the most advantageous.
- We navigate by the landmarks (common data points) the landscape gives us.
How Big Data Helps Content Creation Natively
Big data is a very young, very modern technology. It’s not bound by tradition or pre-existing practices.
Using big data can tell brands how to create or enhance native content. For example in video, that we’ll cover in detail in our next post, big data can inform marketers:
- How long people’s attention are kept consuming content? If people stay long, longer videos are advised; if they click away early, cut the length down.
- What type of content they like or dislike? As obvious as that sounds, many marketers still aren’t putting real effort into aligning with their market’s or buyer’s interests.
- Is there a replay value on the content? —> If so, how can that change the way we connect other funnels? Calls-to-action within content may perform better than putting links in the description box.
Using tools like AI algorithms and taking advantage of narrow targeting, an audience can be defined and refined.
Why Marketers Need to Look To Big Data to Create Engagement
In addition to its power to be a background technology, big data can also create very human micro-experiences.
Recently Spotify created a series of advertisements that put the brand in a very human context. They used their datasets to spotlight the focal points that humanized the information.
Using big data creatively will be crucial in 2017. We can automatically generate and highlight interesting moments. Taking advantage of that and building human experiences around them is a recipe for success.
How Big Data Equalizes the Market
In the past, big data has been a domain of those who could invest in the technology and science to run it. Now, it opened up for everybody.
In our efforts to make big data and the technologies using it more efficient, we lowered the barriers for entry. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are brokering not only attention but the data behind it as well.
This creates an equalizing effect in the marketplace. More businesses have access to less expensive tools. Creativity became the main differentiator.
Using Smart Technologies to Process Big Data in 2017
Big data by itself is fairly useless. We need technologies to process all of it, recognize patterns, and filter data into information.
Artificial intelligence shines in processing large amounts of data quickly and creating projections for marketers. Automation helps bridge together the separate silos of information that is big data.
All these tools are designed to support the human decision-making process. But it remains a human decision-making process. To create human experiences, there needs to be a creative touch on top of the digital innovation.
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