3 Reasons Why Big Data Is Still Hot for B2B Marketers

Marketers have been talking about the importance of Big Data for quite a while now. But ZDNet recently warned the marketing industry may be approaching overuse, calling Big Data the “hype word of the year” and questioning whether it’s still a relevant concept. Confused? Don’t be.

At TowerData, we believe Big Data continues to be enormously important for B2B marketers. Furthermore, we don’t see Big Data going away anytime soon. Here’s why:

Big Data can Generate Big Returns

A McKinsey & Company study of more than 250 engagements over five years revealed that companies that put data at the center of their marketing and sales decisions improve their marketing return on investment by 15-20 percent. Considering companies spend about $1 trillion on marketing globally each year, this creates as much as $200 billion of additional value.

Big Data Helps You Stay Relevant

According to Graeme Grant in Retail Online Integration, “41 percent of consumers say that most emails they receive from brands don’t contain anything that interests them.” What’s more, Graeme states, “The CMO Council reported that 54 percent of consumers would consider ending their relationship with a retailer if they’re not given tailor-made, relevant content and offers.” Ouch.

Of course, the key to sending the right message to the right person at the right time is only possible with Big Data, says Dana Hayes Jr. at Clickz.com. But it’s all in how you use it. “Predicting people’s intentions, or propensity modeling, is what takes you from a blind distraction with big data and into smart, better data implementation for targeted reach.”

Russ Fradin of Marketing Profs concurs: “Big Data is not a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have’ for marketers to make informed decisions.”

Big Data Keeps Getting Better

Have you heard of “algorithmic marketing“? Algorithmic marketing combines Big Data and real-time marketing, allowing marketers to squeeze even more value from the data they collect. The approach uses advanced analytical methods such predictive statistics, machine learning or natural language mining to optimize each customer interaction, allowing marketers to automatically change an offer, price or message on the fly, based on what the data shows about each customer.

And it appears to be working. Consider the case of a Latin American bank that leveraged algorithmic marketing to catapult itself from a little-known player into the 11^th ranked institution in market capitalization worldwide. The bank relied on Big Data (for instance, capturing ATM transaction details) to feed next-product-to-buy algorithms to call centers, so service operators could make personalized offers during the customer’s next interaction.

Now is the time to jump on the Big Data band wagon. According to IBM, 83 percent of CMOs expect to enhance their use of analytics to capture customer insights. And Forbes reports that by 2017, CMOs will outspend CIOs on information technology. As the authors of the McKinsey report state, “Big Data is the biggest game-changing opportunity for marketing and sales since the Internet went mainstream almost 20 years ago.”

Marketing strategy has always been number driven, and Big Data is empowering marketers to leverage those numbers to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. That’s why we believe Big Data is not a hype word or trend-it’s here to stay.

Get a handle on your customer data. Contact TowerData today to get the details on our email intelligence, email validation and email append services.

Photo Credit: Kevin Krejci