The majority of marketers believe they are making sufficient use of data. However, according to a recent Forbes study, only 10 per cent managed more than half of their marketing using big data, highlighting Dan Ariely of Duke University’s idea that, “big data is like teen sex - everybody is talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”
The majority of marketers believe they are making sufficient use of data. However, according to a recent Forbes study, only 10 per cent managed more than half of their marketing using big data, highlighting Dan Ariely of Duke University’s idea that, “big data is like teen sex - everybody is talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”
Yet the benefits can be enormous to marketers. We know from experience, for example, that when we leverage big data on behalf of clients to optimise their digital campaigns, brand sales (not ROI) increase between 8 to 20 per cent. That means potentially adding multi-million dollars of additional revenue on a single campaign for a marketer, significantly more than the size of the investment.
So why are only few marketers still leveraging the power of big data? There is perhaps a lack of realisation of the potential benefits of big data. To a generation of CMOs and CEOs who started their careers shortly before email became an office fixture, when IT folks were running mainframe computers in the basement and implementing SAP, big data and its potential may not be on their radar (yet).
I believe there is another explanation: many marketers today may be embarking on the big data journey from the wrong starting point. Organisations are spending a lot of time and money collecting all the data they can get their hands on, with no clear idea of how they will use it and to what purpose. They end up with a gigantic, unwieldy and expensive big data infrastructure, but with little insight coming out of it.
To find the needle in the haystack, they start by piling more hay on the haystack. Our experience suggests that a more nimble, agile and focused approach pays much higher dividends, much faster. Collecting big data is not the end game. Rather, it’s a costly and necessary chore to move on to the next level - big analytics and real-time marketing optimisation, which is where the big value creation lies for marketers.
As the industry continues to balance the art and science equation in what we do, the advent of big data reminds us once again that it’s not just what you’ve got, but what you do with it that matters. Collecting, managing and sorting data is one thing, but analysing and interpreting effectively it is quite another.
(This article is taken from MEC’s fourth annual Review Preview Report 2014.)
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