Commentary

Why Big Data Can Weigh You Down, And What To Do About It

Big Data is the buzzword that won’t go away. For marketers it can include everything from a customer’s purchasing history to social media "sentiment." Since the turn of the millennium, decreasing storage costs meant that brands have been able to -- and have been encouraged to -- store practically unlimited amounts of data.

However, the more data you hoard, the more costly the burden of governance becomes, and this will only become worse as concerns grow around data protection and security. With a bigger data set, the organisation becomes more complex, potentially harming your ability to access useful information quickly. A large and unwieldy dataset also makes it harder to identify and weed out outdated or inaccurate information, which means that marketing campaigns that rely on this data could be falling at the first hurdle. 

Keep it relevant

As consumers become more selective about what information they are willing to share, it’s more important than ever that brands only collect what’s relevant. A throwaway mention on Twitter from someone who never engages with your business again will not be particularly useful. It’s important to listen to your customers, and social media sentiment can have value, but that value is often short-lived. Measuring social media engagement with a campaign can be an important part of evaluating the campaign’s success, however in six months’ time this data will no longer be useful.

Discard out-of-date data

Data has a use-by date: there might be no point in keeping purchasing history on a product that has been discontinued, for example. It’s essential that brands determine what information will actually improve communication with customers and increase revenue. Useless, expired data should be discarded, not hoarded.

Keep it accurate

Inaccurate data will doom your marketing campaigns to failure. Check the health of your data streams and make sure that your data is accurately informing how you communicate with customers. Data streams can include anything from your operational systems to information from call centres or Web sign ups. Maintaining accuracy is about understanding how that data is gathered and what its lifespan is. For example, a customer’s address will obviously remain relevant and accurate for a longer period than what items are currently in a customer’s online shopping basket. Marketers should ensure that their data is correct as well as understand the period of time that it remains accurate. 

Slim down

Filter all the data you collect as it comes in and routinely reassess its ROI. Following best data management practice will reduce the size of your data set. In turn, focussing on a smaller data set will help brands produce more relevant content.

Data nirvana…

By only keeping the data that is valuable to your business, you will find it much easier to generate revenue from it. For example, as part of our work for a leading automative client we used similar customers’ historical purchasing behaviour to predict the model of car a prospect would buy in the future, with 80% accuracy. This meant the marketing team could produce highly targeted messages that drove sales.

Always consider who your target audience is, what you’re trying to communicate to them and what you’re ultimately trying to achieve. Once you have established exactly what you’re trying to do, it’s easier to identify the data you need to accomplish this.

Ultimately, keeping all the data you can get your hands on is costly and misguided. Businesses need to avoid the temptation to behave like kids in the data candy shop, and start being discerning about what’s really important from a revenue generation perspective.

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