Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!
Big Data. Big Brother. The NSA debacle. People in the United States are feeling vulnerable. And with all the publicity surrounding online security hacks and stolen account numbers (not to mention all-out identity theft), is it any wonder that consumers are leery of giving brands their personal information?
This past July Econsultancy issued a report which made reference to the fact that Big Data is causing big frustrations for those who make their living in the marketing world. The sub-headline that appeared on their site in announcing the report read: “Big data has become something of a buzzword over the past year or so, but is it actually useful?”
Well I happen to think Big Data is useful alright but only if it’s the right Big Data. I mean you can’t just have data just for the sake of having data, yes?
One company has found that leveraging a more accurate, scientific approach based on big data can help marketers socialize their data — giving them a way to understand and leverage their customers’ and prospects’ real-world relationships to substantially improve customer acquisition, cross-sell and retention.
In other words, identify the right Big Data.
My oxymoronish title aside, two esteemed professors at an Ivy League school say that while those in the marketing world continue to struggle with how to handle all the data they are accumulating, they may in fact be wasting their time and more than likely need to go on what they refer to as a “data diet.”
The amount of data brands collect today from all the various channels: social media, email, mobile, and on and on is enormous.
Over the past year or so I’ve written three different articles about Big Data including one in January 2012 entitled Why CMOs Need To Get Real About The Policy Implications Of Big Data.
As we close out 2012, one topic that got a lot of “airtime” in 2012 will surely stay on top of many marketers minds as we enter 2013: Big Data.
The title of my article is a paraphrase of sorts as it comes directly from a study done by IDC which revealed, among other things that in “2012, 23% of the digital universe would be useful for Big Data if tagged and analyzed. However, currently only 3% of the potentially useful data is tagged, and even less is analyzed.”
The “even less” part comes out to less than 1%, 0.5% to be precise.
Not long ago I wrote an article on the use of social media among CEOs and how many often talk the social media talk on behalf of their brands/companies but very few actually walk the social media walk for their own personal use.
Today comes results of a survey conducted by Bazaarvoice of 100 members of The CMO Club. Now while I realize the sample size is small (100) it is worth nothing that 56.1% of the brands represented have more than $1 billion in annual revenue while another 36% have $100-999 million in annual revenue, and just 7.9% have annual revenue of $0-100 million.
Entitled “Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs” the survey and subsequent white paper ”reveals the results of an online survey of 100 members of The CMO Club, which includes CMOs of business-to-consumer and business-to-business organizations.”Key findings include:As for the impact CMOs believe social media has on sales:
While I’m not sure why the folks behind this survey/white paper decided to “water down” the confidence quotient, if you will, by inserting the word “somewhat” in the subhead in the chart above, especially when they did not use the word in the headline – but regardless the fact that so many of the CMOs surveyed identified social media as having such a profound impact on sales, as well as brand awareness and loyalty speaks volumes.
It speaks volumes in that CMOs, perhaps unlike their fellow C-suite residents (CEOs), realize that social media is here to stay – yes there are those still on “it’s a fad” bandwagon, and that it can have a significant impact the things that matter most, AKA the bottom line and brand loyalty.
It would also appear that CMOs realize that social media is a direct reflection on the world around them – the world where consumers live, work and play. While not crazy about the use of the word “somewhat” again, the graph below shows that a large number of CMOs surveyed believe that social media is effective for identifying discernible trends among consumers with the word “discernible” being the operative word for sure.
The graph also reveals how CMOs believe that social media does a great job at reflecting consumer sentiment.
CMOs Are “Customer Champions”
Erin Mulligan Nelson, CMO, Bazaarvoice used that term in discussing the findings of the survey, saying “In a consumer-obsessed C-suite, the CMOs are the chief customer advocates and social (media) data is their ultimate weapon. Social data lets CMOs truly know their customers and predict consumers’ future needs before they even have them. Nearly all CMOs now use this data to drive decisions. As the business world re-centers around serving and delighting consumers, social data is turning CMOs into customer champions — and heroes within the C-suite. And as an industry, we have just started to tap into the potential of social data.”
She is dead on when she says that we have just started to tap into the potential of all the social media data of course as we are just now beginning to realize the sheer magnitude and power and scope of the mounds of data. Given the fact that we as consumers now create as much information every two days as we did from the dawn of civilization to 2003, I would say Acxiom CMO Tim Sutherwas correct when he referred to it as a ”tsunami of data” in an article I wrote back in February entitled How To Rein In The Riches Of Big Data.
The aforementioned article also speaks to the inherent dangers brands and businesses face when deciding what to do with all this new found data and the possible legal ramifications therein.
Sources: CMO.com, Bazaarvoice, The CMO Club
Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski is a freelance copywriter/blogger looking for full-time work. He has worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and has more than 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. He lives in Philly and can be reached via email,Twitter, LinkedIn, or his website.
Big Data is a popular term today that references the huge volumes of business and consumer data being collected and stored by organizations, which cannot be effectively data mined due to the limitations of commonly used software tools that capture, manage, or process the data.
While first diagnosed in the science, government, healthcare and military industries, the vast volumes of consumer data being produced through social technologies has landed this reality – and this problem – on the desks of CMOs globally.
Not only is data being produced at lighting speeds, the devices used to produce, broadcast, measure, store and share that data are on the rise, which then fuels further content generation. The cycle is creating a Big Data cyclone that organizations will continue to struggle with.