Transforming Big Data into Insight: Getting Past the Hyperbole
Transforming Big Data into Insight: Getting Past the Hyperbole Introduction: Big Data, Roadmap to a Big Revenue Opportunity It doesn t matter what industry you are in, or what marketing technologies you use, Big Data represents a big revenue opportunity. Data are exploding at a rate of nearly a 1000 percent increase in the last five years from offline and online sources that are just waiting to be monetized ( Extracting Value from Chaos, IDC, June, 2011). Compounding this challenge are social media and mobile communications which create new ways to buy B2C and B2B products. Every customer touch point generates marketing data. However, in reality, for most marketing organizations, the Big Data issue is a missed revenue opportunity. For all of the tremendous productivity and effectiveness that marketing automation and campaign management systems provide, they are very limited in handling Big Data, and transforming it into useful insight. As a result, marketers are missing out on crucial data that are driving buying decisions from their target markets. The nature of Big Data is really three fold time, volume, and source. Time and volume are really driven by the real-time nature of the Internet. While this data are in many cases adequately being captured on a company s Web site, mobile and social media conversations about a marketer s brand are being sorely missed. www.quickpivot.com 2
Why Take Action? The nature of Big Data is really three fold time, volume, and source. Time and volume are really driven by the real-time nature of the Internet. While this data are in many cases adequately being captured on a company s Web site, mobile and social media conversations about a marketer s brand are being sorely missed. Additionally, it is these sources, mobile and social media that are generating huge volumes of marketing-related data in real-time that are creating missed revenue opportunities. In fact, while reading this white paper, there are a multitude of lost buying opportunities your team is missing right now. In essence, it s a revenue leakage problem. To illustrate the point further, IDC further states that of the 35ZB (zetabytes) of data that will exist worldwide in 2018, over 32ZB of that data will come from the world of mobile, social media, and email unstructured data. The challenge for the marketer then is to use Big Data in a timely way, in real-time, to create a complete customer profile that drives crosschannel marketing and revenue performance. The challenge for the marketer then is to use Big Data in a timely way, in real-time, to create a complete customer profile that drives cross-channel marketing and revenue performance. Traditionally, some of the online customer interaction history could be brought together by marketing automation and campaign management platforms that matched customers based on email id. This is an inadequate way to create a true customer profile for cross-channel marketing purposes and underscores the need for marketing databases. Today, marketing automation platforms, in an attempt to meet some of the requirements of burgeoning Big Data do provide the capability to match customers on social and mobile id, but this is also inadequate. True and comprehensive customer profiles for cross-channel marketing need to include all forms of customer data online and offline, to get a 360 degree view of the customer. Once that occurs, it is then possible for marketers to use a marketing database, extending beyond what is in a marketing automation and campaign management platform, as an interactive marketing hub, where customers are matched on email, social, and mobile ids, along with their purchase and service history. Unstructured data from social media and SMS text messaging can then be integrated into those marketing hubs to drive true buying experiences that meet the demands of Big Data time, source, and volume. www.quickpivot.com 3
Big Data + Insight = Revenue Attainment Transforming Big Data into insight is what drives revenue attainment by using an interactive marketing hub. The issue isn t whether insight is necessary; it s what kind of insight do marketers need to effectively segment their markets? Defining the issue that way enables marketers to treat insight as an evolution, rather than a revolution by: Treating existing data as insight Learning from it, e.g. what size customer or title groups are your best prospects Improving upon it over time and fill in the gaps even if it is basic firmographic information, e.g. revenue size, industry, titles Marketers need to unlock the power of insight in the form of their data. For example: What is the most popular message or offer to a particular type of contact? Those basic questions begin to paint a picture around insight that tells the marketer how Big Data is flowing in their marketing channels. How many contacts, and their title and type of company, actually responded to the message or offer? Which channel was the most effective? Those basic questions begin to paint a picture around insight that tells the marketer how Big Data is flowing in their marketing channels. In this simple example, a marketer would form the beginning stages of segmenting, profiling, and interacting with customers in ways they want to be communicated with. After all, Big Data doesn t come into your marketing environment from one source; they literally flow from hundreds of sources, both offline and online and includes purchase, customer service and pre-sales history. As a result, marketers are missing out on leveraging Big Data strategically through their existing marketing automation and campaign management platforms. www.quickpivot.com 4
Marketing Roadmap for Big Data Success Here are several steps, based on our experience in handling tens of millions of customer interactions, all over the globe, on effectively harnessing Big Data effectively to meet and exceed your revenue goals: To tap into all forms of customer engagement, online and offline, across any marketing channel, a purpose-built marketing data mart, integrated with your marketing and campaign platform, is required... 1. Use all forms of customer engagement By customers, we mean prospects and your buying customers. Customer engagements, or interactions, are critical to the marketer from a segmentation and a buying behavior perspective. But accessing, using, and acting on that data can be daunting in today s marketing automation systems. To tap into all forms of customer engagement, online and offline, across any marketing channel, a purpose-built marketing data mart, integrated with your marketing and campaign platform, is required to bring together all of your customer interaction and purchasing history to make it actionable. Create matching rules that uniquely identify a customer across all channels and tie marketing and sales activity together Match on multiple data elements other than email address for a complete profile Match online and offline data sources Constantly update contacts with the most trusted information sources based on your business rules www.quickpivot.com 5
Using a marketing database with customer intelligence tools specific to your customer interaction history turns your marketing automation platform into a driver of revenue performance. The end result? A complete customer interaction profile based on products purchased, channels of engagement, and service history. 2. Make deriving insight strategic Most marketers want more customer intelligence, but they re not sure how to get started with the avalanche of customer data that exists today. Marketing automation and campaign management provides various ways to measure campaign performance through reports and dashboards. But what about customer intelligence that really looks into buying behavior? For example, what if you could perform a customer journey analysis, identifying the behaviors of prospects at the buying stage with the kind of online and offline channels that most correlate to those buyers receiving the type of information they need to move onto the next stage? Customer intelligence capabilities provide a holistic view of prospects and customers, including: Profiling results by campaign and customer attributes Identifying opportunities based on the level of risk and reward Using new forms of interactive reporting and data discovery, based on campaign performance and interaction history Using a marketing database with customer intelligence tools specific to your customer interaction history turns your marketing automation platform into a driver of revenue performance. 3. Transform Big Data Everyone works to clean their data, but it s not just about de-duplication or merge and purge. There s a lot more that needs to be done to transform data to make it truly usable and actionable. www.quickpivot.com 6
Aggregating data from multiple online and offline sources progressively adds attributes to your customer profiles. Making data usable and actionable goes beyond your marketing automation and campaign management platform. There are a number of technologies and processes, you ll want to implement, including: Using data libraries to clean and validate data Decoding raw incoming data to Improve its usability Using derived attributes based on complex relationships within the data that enable you to more rapidly discover buying behavior to use directly in campaigns driven by your platform Creating a quarantine around incomplete data until it is ready for use 4. Data management as part of your strategy The goal here is to create actionable customer interaction profiles that you can use in your segmentation. Here s where a number of actions can produce big results in the marketing database you ve now created: Progressive profiling is a great capability within a marketing automation system. But you want to add that capability in a much more sophisticated way to your customer data through interaction history. Aggregating data from multiple online and offline sources progressively adds attributes to your customer profiles. Store and manage a client s entire prospect universe in the marketing database, but load only relevant customer data into the campaign management system or marketing automation platform to create greater campaign efficiency and lower costs Use portfolio management for data acquisition to test and measure the effectiveness of all list acquisition activities www.quickpivot.com 7
Take a comprehensive turnkey approach to maintaining complex firmographic and demographic segmentation and profiling, involving appending, storing, and updating attribute data Take a comprehensive turnkey approach to maintaining complex firmographic and demographic segmentation and profiling, involving appending, storing, and updating attribute data, while working directly with a data provider Create business rules to distribute campaign responses to the SFA system based on type of campaign, geography, product, partnership, or business unit With data management as part of your strategy, and transforming data into insight as a result, you ll then be in a strong position, with the right technology and campaign strategy, to begin moving toward real-time cross channel marketing. 33 Arch Street, 9th Floor Boston, MA 02110 T: 617.880.4000 F: 617.880.4001 www.quickpivot.com About QuickPivot QuickPivot is the leader in real-time cross-channel marketing automation and services for B2B and B2C enterprises. QuickPivot delivers insight plus channels plus content in one marketing platform to enable marketers to listen, connect, learn, and adapt to the changing needs of customers. For more information, visit www.quickpivot.com, or call +1-617-880-4000, or email info@quickpivot.com. All content Copyright 2014, QuickPivot, Inc. All trademarks are property of their respective holders. www.quickpivot.com 8