Big Data Applications in Marketing

Discuss About The Opportunity Challenges Big Data Marketing.

Big Data encompasses large volumes of data that are used by companies in order to form strategies[1]. Big Data sets are not only large and voluminous but are also complex in nature requiring data processing applications software to process the same. Big Data is used in almost every contemporary company now to deal with globalisation challenges and meet with technological updation.  There is application of analytics in Big Data that are used to predict complex and versatile outcomes for arriving at business trends, combat crimes, prevent diseases and for many more applications. The scope of the study relates to application related to Big Data in marketing. Marketers and companies make use of versatile data related to buyers and products for analysing them and arriving at choices related to products. Therefore, there is tremendous application of Big Data in the field of Marketing. This study deals with analysis of opportunity and challenges faced in Marketing related to Big Data.           

Big Data has been thought to be one of the key core competency that a marketing agency or department of a company can have. Invention of technology on phone and advent of the internet have allowed big data being the fundamental aspect for the new marketing landscape. Marketing companies and departments stores such huge amounts of data generated, processes them and analyses them for arriving at complex decisions related to their products as  what products to produce, at what prices to produce,  who will be the main purchasers, how to market them, who are the primary competitors and so on. Such diversified questions earlier used to be managed by traditional marketing steps, which has now transformed to big data analytics[2]. It can be said that Big Data application is versatile and spread across lengths and breadths of marketing aspect of a company. Organizations now faces tremendous amounts of challenges from organizational complexity, customer  behaviours and increased competition from traditional as well as virtual companies. Rapid proliferating platforms have led to generation of multiple channels and platforms leading to a complex environment. This has further led to size of Big Data growing rapidly every year. Marketing has application related to Big Data at each and every step to allow it to take concrete footstep. Though having big data does not necessarily enhances chance of better marketing efforts but big data has  become an essential element for marketing.

Challenges Faced by Marketers

Marketing organizations makes use of variety of complex data to arrive at better decision making for their products and other strategies. Application of Big Data in marketing is at every step, meaning from designing of a product to receiving feedback from customers. There are various application and opportunity of marketing that allows marketers to generate higher returns on their products.

Big Data is revolutionizing ways companies achieve customer responsiveness: Big data has created opportunities for every department of marketing all over the globe. Availability of customer information based on customer interaction has provided marketers a wide range of data from customer demographics to grater in-depth information[3].

Bessen (1993) focuses on continuous interaction between customers and the company for development of appropriate marketing techniques. Two-way interaction between customers and marketers allows a detailed information related to life-styles, product preferences for development of effective and efficient activities. Approximately 44% of B2C marketers make use of analytics and big data for enhancing responsiveness. Another 36% make use of data mining and analytics for arriving at greater relationship driven strategies. 

Big Data is support key strategies in Sales & Marketing: Growing mass of big data is focused on accessing financial information of customers so as to maximize business performance for creation of competitive advantages[4].

Big Data  is used 48% in Customer Analytics, 21% in Operational Analytics, 12% in Fraud and Compliance, 10% in New Product & Service Innovation and rest in Enterprise Data Warehousing Optimization. Customer Analytics application of Big Data is rising across Sales and Marketing departments that supports four key strategies of customer acquisition, reducing customer churning, increasing customer revenue and in improving existing products to find more suitability to customers.               

Big Data Application in Affiliate technologies: Data collection had been always primary aim of marketers for enhancing competitiveness by building of customer information systems. These systems possess capabilities for developing better products on basis of customer preferences[5]. Digital revolution have enforced a shift towards digital products and information that combines innovation with new database in cloud storage. The American business giant Wal-Mart is known to store customer data of more than 1 million transactions every hour. The data includes 40 billion photos that are uploaded on Facebook with 48 hours of YouTube video every minute. Such huge amounts of data can reap tremendous benefits to businesses for enhancing competitive advantages. Big Data is combining with affiliate technologies by embedding intelligence into contextual marketing outcomes. Big Data analytics provides platform for creation of scalable systems that are completely integrated across processes and data levels.

Big Data applications in marketing programs: Big data linked success stories are on a continuous rise with its inevitable growth of such data usage. Consumers are more willing to share their personal information that further increases commercial value added to the organization. This provides companies opportunity towards empowering their consumers. Almost as high as 58 % Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) supports search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing and mobile to be having their biggest impact from Big Data[6]. Big Data is considered to be an essential part of large corporations marketing strategy for the long-term.

Big Data providing cost-effective marketing strategies: Online giant companies as Facebook and Google have suitable harnessed data into web making it an extremely lucrative business. These companies offer tailored campaigns for clients through messages, posts and online searches. Marketers offering internet marketing can provide cost-efficient tools as user videos, social media feeds, image posts and so on for enhancing marketing activities online.

Big Data allows marketers potentiality to make successful customer relationship: Marketers have now available massive dashboards that provide marketers with real-time holistic views of consumer engagement and ongoing activities. Marketers can now optimize advertising with availability of large amounts of big data with them. Big Data analytics have allowed marketers capability to go beyond campaign execution. Big Data analytics can define and guide customer development by increasing customer loyalty and improving them lifetime.      

Big Data has allowed a new dimension into Marketing allowing marketers to extend a brand new definition. However, there remains various challenges as well of Big Data into marketing. Sole aim for marketers earlier was to collect as much information as possible but the paradigm has changed now significantly. Prajicek (2013) criticizes multiple marketing departments for commenting that more data is better[7]. It is a fallacy that more amounts of data will provide better solution for marketers. When terabyte amounts of data is available, one needs to successfully analyse the same, lack of skill will prevent marketers from arriving at conclusive results. Therefore some of the major challenges faced by marketers is given below.

Availability of large amounts of cumbersome information: Big Data is now available to almost all marketers and companies around the world. Now challenges for marketers are managing too much information, which was earlier having too less information. Large volume of information related to customers coming from varied sources needs to be segregated. Marketers now have to create information ecosystem by combining data patterns from varied sources to arrive at conclusive decision related to data[8]. Marketers sometimes are unable to comprehend such large and infinite source of information that are generated from big data applications. Customer and data analytics is the most critical part of Big Data without which effectiveness of Big Data will be nil. Marketers hence have to learn various techniques and tactics for the purpose of utilization of Big Data.

Developing the right technology: Big Data consumes immense amounts of time of marketers, which they spend looking at the cloud for interpretation. Marketers now with availability of Big Data try and predict macro trends, where great ideas and insights gets wasted by leveraging against Big Data[9]. Data needs of the corporation have to be acted upon such that potential competitive advantages can be created. Marketers remain confused regarding using in-house resources or outside resources to analyse their Big Data. 

Mapping Customer Journey: Big Data makes available varied types of information regarding customers and their preferences. However, marketers are not able to understand ways in which customers move from brand awareness into conversion. Customer tracking customers is an extremely difficult process, implying customers might view the advertisement in billboard, view it on their desktops and finally conclude their purchases on mobile devices[10]. Marketers are unable to join the missing lines between online and offline channels. While collecting data, most marketers felt that their measurements were incomplete and as little as 35% marketers felt that they understood the journey of consumers. Marketers need a tool that could possibly bridge the gap between offline and online experiences to bring customer journey into focus.

Incapability to make long-term decisions: With Big Data availability marketers and sales experiences tremendous amounts of clashes. Application of Big Data can erode long-term marketing commitments based on generation of short-term sales promotions. Big Data reliance of a Company has capability to turn decision making into short-term mindset, this might do greater harm on the company.

Big Data has ethical concerns related to privacy: Major challenge and criticism of Big Data is its implications on individual privacy. Corporations have now access to large amounts of consumer’s personal information that intrudes on private life. This generates various ethical concerns for commercial uses of Big Data to keep consumer trust[11].        

Conclusion

Big Data can be understood to provide several benefits in the field of marketing. However, there are certain challenges faced as well. In order to gain greater benefits arising from Big Data one needs to comprehend information and data that is assimilated. The following recommendations will allow to utilized in order to reap maximum benefits from it.

Connect data: Marketers needs devise strategies to link offline information with that of online information. This link will allow accounting overcome challenge related to Big Data and chart out the path of their customers eventually.

Data Analytics: Marketers needs to design and adopt systems fit that allows analytics to take place effectively and derive information from data available readily. It will help increase usability of the data.

Big Data collected needs to adhere to ethical information: Big data collected should not breach privacy and security concerns of consumers, which might harm them. Overcoming to the challenge might eventually lead to Big Data effectiveness.

References

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