Why Big Data is Important to Your Business

“Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.” – Geoffrey Moore

In today’s commercial world, big data is big business.

In fact, by 2020, it’s said that 1.7 megabytes of data will be created every second, for every person on earth. What’s more, spending on big data technology is expected to reach the $57 billion mark this year. With such a wealth of data available, if utilized to its full potential, big data can help a brand or business gain valuable insights on their customers and as a result refine their marketing efforts to improve engagement and increase conversions.

As the world of digital continues to evolve, more big data metrics are being generated from an ever-expanding range of sources, meaning businesses like yours can really drill down and find out everything they need to know about their customers, both on a mass and individual basis.

In the modern world, information is power – and with big data, you stand to become more powerful than ever before.

To paint a clearer picture of big data and how it can be used to your advantage, these kinds of intricate analytics can be used for:

Social listening: Social listening gives you the power to determine who is saying what about your business. Brand sentiment analysis will present you with the type of detailed feedback you can’t get from regular polls or surveys.

Comparative analysis: This branch of big data allows you to compare your products, services and overall brand authority with your competition by cross examining user behavior metrics and seeing how consumers are engaging with businesses in your sector in real-time.

Marketing analytics: The information gained from marketing analytics will help you promote new products, services or initiatives to your target audience in a more informed, innovative way. One of the best ways to get started with marketing analytics is by using Google Analytics (GA). If you use WordPress for your business, all you will need to do is learn how to install Google Analytics to your WP site, and you’ll gain access to a wealth of valuable information.

Targeting: This stream of big data offers the power to dig into social media activity about a particular subject from multiple sources in real-time, identifying audiences for your marketing campaigns. For instance, you might want to target certain customer groups with an exclusive special offer or give them a sneak-peak at a brand-new product launch.

Customer satisfaction: By analyzing big data from a multitude of sources, you’ll be able to enhance the usability of your website and boost customer engagement. Also, these metrics will help you iron out any potential customer issues before they have a chance to go viral, preserving brand loyalty and vastly improving your customer service efforts across a host of channels, including phone, email, chat and social.

Today’s consumer is smarter, savvier, more demanding and more empowered than ever. In this day and age, to spark the interest and earn the trust of your target audience, you must connect with them in an innovative, engaging and most importantly, personal manner.

With so many incredible insights available almost at the click of a button, brands and businesses who use big data to their advantage will be the ones that thrive long into the future. A failure to use big data could prove disastrous – don’t get left behind.

For more big data insights, read about taking control of system storage performance.

About the Author

Sheza Gary is a technical director at Algoworks, a global IT service provider which operates chiefly in United States from its California office. She was previously a technical manager at CloudGenix. Sheza has a MBA from California State University, Northridge and a bachelor’s from Boston University.

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