The digital era has come with an incredible amount of data that is now integral to many business operations. With the emergence and rapid adoption of social media and search engine optimization, data has never been more plentiful and readily available. New strategies that small local businesses and global companies alike can make fantastic use of all hinge on data and business intelligence. Social media platforms alone offer businesses a constant amount of data that is publicly available. While having access to unlimited data is a good thing, there is more data than companies can handle on their own. If a company wants to make effective use of the copious amounts of data available online, they will need to use specially designed tools, like the PI System Connection, to manage the volume. This is where business intelligence comes in to save the day. Business intelligence is the technology-based process of data collection and analysis that allows businesses to use data effectively and quickly. By using business intelligence, you can enhance your digital marketing and use data to make smart decisions.

Know Your Customers

Before the Internet, companies were forced to wait to learn about customer reactions to their new products. There was no instant feedback, and products would go through development, launch, and then companies had to wait for reviews to see if the product was successful. This lag in communication between a business and its customers can lead to the business making products customers don’t want.

Thankfully, the Internet, and more specifically, social media, lets companies receive instant feedback. Social media gives businesses access to customer’s needs, wants, dislikes, behavior patterns, and a host of demographic information. Use this customer data to inform your marketing content and appeal to different types of customers with content that suits their needs. You can also use customer data to prevent wasting resources on ineffective marketing that targets the wrong groups or sends a message that doesn’t resonate with your intended customers.

Real-Time Analytics

Data flows through the Internet at a constant and breakneck speed. Working from out-dated data can cause a myriad of problems, and if a business wants to stay competitive, they cannot afford to be lagging behind with data analysis. There is always new data, and it can be hard to keep up, but real-time analytics lets businesses stay up to date. Real-time data analysis enables companies to respond faster in a variety of categories. Whether real-time data enables a marketing team to change course to make a better ad or allows customer service to respond to customer questions faster, real-time data analysis will always be a vital tool for companies.

The Power of AI

Real-time data analysis can even be augmented with artificial intelligence to automate tasks and responses. CRM tools that use AI can automate follow-ups, emails, customer service responses, and more. Fast responses and automated tasks not only benefit the customer because they receive their service faster, but it also benefits the company. The less time human employees waste on tasks that can be automated, the more time they have to work on something new.

The tasks AI can now tackle include designed email marketing content in accordance with personalized user behavior. AI is now helping companies connect with people and turn those connections into qualified leads. The real-time analysis even knows the best time to contact a lead, what information the lead will like the most, and what titles receive the most clicks. AI is becoming an indispensable tool that is expanding the reach of business intelligence to the benefit of customers and companies alike.

Natural Language and Voice Searches

Google estimates 70% of all Google searches are done with natural or conversational language. There are still keywords within the natural language, but the old way of searching the Internet is gone. Learning to work with RankBrain and voice search will increase your SERP performance. The widespread adoption of home smart devices has led to a rise in voice search, and companies must incorporate that form of data into their marketing strategies. By supporting and integrating voice search and natural language keywords, a company can maintain organic traffic as the way we search continues to evolve.

Business intelligence is a critical process that businesses should employ to keep up in the digital age. With more data available than ever, every tool to manage, understand, and analyze data can help boost a company’s digital marketing. Business intelligence spans a wide variety of uses, from understanding customers to AI-enhanced CRM, and is a tool all digital companies should be utilizing.

Tim Cook recently voiced strong opinions on privacy issues at a cyber security summit in Silicon Valley. With big data fueling personalized marketing strategies, brands are paying close attention to the latest developments in online security and legislation. Providing data sharing and analysis is done openly and with the full understanding of the public, data driven marketing can offer a valuable service to both marketers and their audiences.

The relationship between consumer data and privacy is notoriously complex; the summit at which Tim Cook attended preceded the signing of a new order that will make it easier for the government to share sensitive information about potential cyber threats with the public sector. Cook said “We believe customers have a right to privacy and the vast majority of customers don’t want people knowing everything about them.’ Cook highlights a sensitive issue; consumers don’t want to be watched or to be pestered with overzealous social media presence and frequent emails.

Conducting market research in a trustworthy and transparent way enables brands to maintain a continuous presence as opposed to an invasive ‘always on’ approach. In this sense data driven marketing can be less invasive than attempts to cultivate on-going conversations with consumers through more traditional marketing practices. Generic ‘feedback’ and testimonials are being increasingly overlooked in favour of more meaningful ‘real time’ responses to brands, their products and their activity on social media platforms. Online panels offer a great opportunity for brands to execute a more targeted approach for more valuable data.

According to a recent study, organisations that take the lead in implementing data-driven marketing report better levels of customer engagement than those that don’t. Working within global markets has created a stronger sense of competition than ever before. Tapping into consumer intelligence offers an exciting opportunity to develop more useful marketing strategies and the benefits appear to outweigh the challenge of striking the delicate balance between offering better customer service and respecting consumer privacy. Marketers who have embraced data-driven marketing to the fullest extent have enjoyed demonstrable results. The travel industry is a leading example – 67 per cent of travel executives claimed that data driven marketing has helped to improve customer engagement and satisfaction. Similarly, the retail industry is enjoying great results – over 55 per cent of retail executives claim to have enjoyed a competitive advantage in customer loyalty and acquisition.

Consumers can experience real benefits from the tailored service that data driven marketing facilitates. From pre-filling online supermarket shopping baskets and saving preferred travel routes to recommending music and films – understanding data can enable consumers to enjoy an efficient, personalized shopping experience.

See our top tips below for an introduction to some of the key considerations for implementing or executing a data driven marketing strategy:

• In order to extract the best possible value from your data it is important to ensure you are using the most relevant and efficient market research tools. Over 68.2 per cent of marketers are analyzing customers through data and 30 per cent of marketers use analytics tools – choosing reliable tools is a great way of leveraging your data for maximum benefit

• Keep things simple. Introducing numerous tools and technology to your marketing strategy can complicate things and distract from the true objectives and lead to mistakes. 51.8 per cent of marketers interviewed indicated that building reports presented a serious issue. Introduce clear objectives and create a simple reporting format for rich, meaningful results.

• This is new territory; don’t be afraid to follow a good example. Monitor competitor activity and thought leadership. Like all areas of the industry, data-driven marketing is constantly evolving and staying on top of the latest developments will help to keep your strategy relevant.

• Over 33 per cent of marketers in a recent study claimed that they don’t have staff with the right skills to properly leverage the data. Be prepared to build both your strategy and your team. Get the right process and the right people in place, a skilled and numerate team who understand the challenges of interpreting data will be in a far better position to grow as the industry evolves.

Author bio

Morten Strand is the chief executive of Cint, a global provider of market research tools for obtaining market insight from survey respondents. With a global reach of more than 10 million people in 57 countries – all recruited through 500 different panel owners like publishers, local media outlets, market research agencies and non-profits – Cint’s exchange platform OpinionHUB is a fully transparent insights marketplace, bringing together questions and answers from all around the world.