Big Data & Digital Marketing

There is a substantial spending on big data, with more than 75% of companies (from different industries) investing in big data in the next two years.

Each industry vertical has its own challenges and solutions. Here is a great article and infographics by simplilearn that describe for 10 verticals both main challenges and applications.

The 10 industries are:

1. Banking

2. Communication

3. Healthcare

4. Education

5. Manufacturing

6. Government

7. Insurance

8. Retail

9. Transportation

10. Energy

Top retailers are using Big Data to gain a competitive advantage:
predicting trends and preparing for future demand.

Synchronize prices hourly with demand, inventory and the competition.

Pinpoint customers who will likely buy your product and contact them as they wish to be reached, when they are in the right location, and engaging them with personalized real-time offers.

Retailers using big data technology are able to provide a smarter shopping experience to influence purchase decisions and edge out the competition.

Big Data is often considered a complicated and nebulous topic. It’s defined by abstract vocabulary like “volume,” “velocity” and “variety” that can be hard to get a handle on.

However, if you keep the Grand Bazaar in mind, you have an easy-to-grasp image of what Big Data really is: the intelligence gathering and processing of many granular data points and signals so you can identify customers’ personality, needs, and wants in real-time.

Wouldn't it be great if when you walk in a store you could have the shopping assistant give you exactly what you came in for? For any store where you go.

Aside from some of the bigger names, not every online retailer is hot on this either, but things are changing now.

The retail landscape has changed drastically in the last 10 years, customers now more than ever expect retailers to go the extra mile to keep their custom.

Digital Signage is becoming vital for retail.
Data Analytics is vital to exploit any digital network.

A recent IBM Institute for Business Value study notes that leaders are 166 percent more likely to make most decisions based on data, and 75 percent of leaders cite growth as the key source of value from analytics.

In the new IDC retail insights study: “Business Strategy: Big Data and Analytics Lay the Foundation for Revenue Growth,” it is noted that, in 2013, approximately 50 percent of retailers were using big data and analytics to inform pricing strategies, market intelligence and customer acquisition, with more retailers to join in next two to three years.

The various functions of a retail business, such as marketing, merchandising, supply chain, operations and customer service, must wear different hats at different times and should think about how others perceive their brands, as well as what they can do to enhance customer centricity.

Here are some examples of how IBM helped four famous retailers (Luxottica, BestBuy, Elie Tahari and Macys)

Recently, market research firm PSFK Labs released the fourth annual report in its series "The Future of Retail," focusing on what those in the industry should consider in 2014.

It made a point of noting that customers expect to enjoy a shopping experience that's perfectly tailored to them across all channels (in-store, online and via mobile).

For this to occur, big data analytics must – and can – be used to offer the direct customer service and personalization that so many consumers seek.

The key is not to try and hijack the conversation, but rather to contribute to it. 

The most exciting trend is the movement from brands being awash in social data, but not really knowing what to do with it, to integrating social data into specific valuable business process. We can now process these huge volumes of information to give a brand a specific bullseye on the conversations they must  join to be relevant with their consumers. Before, brands weren’t ready to seize that opportunity, but now they are.