Marketing has been through a lot of eras: from the mass-marketing era to digital marketing, and now data-driven marketing.
In the age where data is much easier to collect and cheaper to host, small businesses are busy finding ways to leverage their comprehensive data analysis for the best marketing insights.
Big data, surprisingly, is well-suited for small businesses since they’re more agile, independent, and able to act quicker on data-driven insights.
That being said, many of them are still struggling to use that data in practical ways.
This article will break down how big data helps small businesses to achieve the best results in their marketing strategy.
What are the Perks of Using Big Data for Small Businesses Marketing?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it’s essential to know the benefits of big data specifically for small businesses.
As a savvy small business owner, hopping abroad on big data is an excellent way for you to:
1. A Better Understanding of your Audience
In most cases, small businesses jump into big data to better understand who their customers are. You’re probably one of them.
Big data provides accessible information about your target customers and their preferences.
When you get a better understanding of your customers, you gain more knowledge about them, such as:
- What type of customer buys your product.
- What makes them purchase your product?
- How are they attracted to your product?
With these useful data at hand, you can build a better strategy by manufacturing high-quality goods or services that target their needs. This, in turn, will turn your customers loyal to your brand and increase brand awareness resulting in higher ROI or revenue.
2. Seamlessly Check Out the Competition
Big data makes it easier for you to know your competition. Back in the past, taking a look at your competitors’ performance to study them is a tedious task.
Big data makes all the financial information available; it provides you information on how your competitors are doing all while sipping your morning coffee.
From this information, you can create killer strategies to kickstart your small business marketing campaigns.
3. Keep Up With Trends
The ever-growing marketing landscape keeps businesses in all sizes on their toes. Keeping up to date with the latest trends is crucial.
In this matter, big data helps you to spot and monitor customers’ behavior to take a stab at predicting what trends will get their attention.
For example, the trending topics across social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter will inform you what users are excited for at certain times.
You can also use services like Trendera and Trend Hunter that collate data on trends that targets explicitly the industry you’re in.
4. Reduce Overall Costs
The three points mentioned above will help you reduce costs and save time. You can allocate your budget to create a better marketing strategy.
It’s safe to say that big data is insanely useful for small businesses to reduce overall costs. It may seem like a breath of fresh air for your small businesses on a shoestring budget.
How to Boost Your Marketing Strategy With Big Data
Today, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day. And by 2020, it’s projected that 1.7 megabytes of data per person will be created every single second worldwide.
Those numbers offer massive opportunities for your small businesses to start garnering big data and achieve the best results in marketing.
Here are some actionable tips to get the best use of big data. Boost your marketing strategy with these actionable steps:
1. Take Full Advantage of Social Media
Social media has become a staple that most internet users visit and use their platform every day. Using social media is an excellent way for you to spread brand awareness.
All the status, updates, trending topics, photos, even videos are all data about the demographics of your target audience. You can utilize this information by managing or analyzing it to get a competitive edge.
Big data is generally used by small business owners to map out their next social media campaigns. By tracking and learning everything they need to know about their potential customers and approaching them to make them stick around for the long haul.
You’ll be able to engage with your existing customers and reach out to potential buyers through social media.
2. Track the Leads
Big data is intricately tied to customer information. It makes it much easier for you to know where your customers are coming from, what they like about your product and what they don’t.
You can start using these data to track your leads. By tracking your leads, you can continuously make a strategic decision about your next campaign or strategy. This is how you maximize your campaign efficiency.
3. Adopt Marketing Analytics
As a small business owner, it’s normal for you not to have enough time to research and analyze marketing initiatives.
Big data will provide you with all the necessary information you need and adopt marketing analytics to develop a different marketing approach and make the best of it.
Adopting marketing analytics means that you can collect data across all marketing channels and combine them into a standard marketing view. With this common view, you can get a glimpse of analytical results (which is essential for decision making) to help you drive your marketing efforts forward.
4. Make Use of Analytics Tools
Managing big data is undoubtedly not the easiest thing to deal with, especially for a small business. That’s why you need to actively use analytic tools to ease the daunting task of sorting out marketing data and making it useful. This doesn’t mean you have to purchase expensive tools in the market.
Using low-to-no budget tools like Google Analytics, Buzzsumo, CrazyEgg, or SEMrush allows you to track the data you need effortlessly. This includes the number of leads, click-through rate, impressions, traffic to your site, and more. You can interpret these data yourself to brainstorm your next marketing strategy and easily outrank your competitors.
5. Continually Refine your Marketing Strategies
It’s necessary to remember that marketing is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. You need to constantly refine your strategy to get the best results of your campaigns. Keeping those four points above consistent is an excellent way to get you there.
By refining strategies consistently, you are evolving your business into a better future.
With big data, you can evaluate internal sales data and even consumer buying trends. You’ll be alerted to any shifts in the competition that may impact your strategy. Then, you can come up with a big-picture plan that will help you grow your small business.
Wrapping Up
Not only is big data crucial to your small business marketing campaign, but it’s also revolutionizing marketing as a whole. If done right, big data can have a significant impact on your marketing approaches, such as increasing brand awareness and sales. By all means, big data will create a big difference for your small business to successfully compete in today’s fierce marketplace.
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).