One of the most interesting topics we covered in my Internet Marketing class this week was the difference between Reporting and Analytics as well as what to do with data. Reporting is very important—building good dashboards, identifying the right numbers to track, establishing the right regularity to monitor are all big decisions that every organization needs to make and they need to find the right people or systems to pull all this information together. From my perspective though, the real ‘magic’ happens through analytics.
‘Big Data’ is everyone’s favorite marketing phrase to throw around right now. We can personalize! We can be even more relevant! But big data is extremely lost without the support of strong analytics to help rein it in. All the numbers for every measure in the world at face value won’t help to make business decisions. Analyzing why something is up or down, why something is flat, what some number might do in the next 3 months based on this 3 months for the past 4 years is why data can be so powerful for business. We can make logical predictions and adjust budgets, promotions and expectations to increase performance.
In fact, this data isn’t just powerful for business. A recent article on BBC News outlined how big data analytics might even be able to help contain the spread of Ebola. Specifically, mobile phone data is being looked at to see and predict how people in West Africa might move around the country and further spread the virus.
Big Data can also, of course, be super, super creepy. This article from CMS Wire does a great job of describing the difference. One of my favorite parts of the article talks about how creepiness is in the eye of the consumer, not in the eye of the company. Having access to so much data is powerful and there’s a lot of temptation to use it and use it and use it to really close a sale. This is dangerous stuff for a marketer to have access to and good ones need to know how to walk that line.
Great find on the BBC article about containing the spread of Ebola!
ReplyDeleteThere is a level of paranoia and invasion that comes with the conversation of big data. And while I find justification for that sense of paranoia and invasion, big data isn't all bad. It's research and solution and clever things such as using analytic to contain spread of a killer virus.
Thanks Molly! I thought the article was really interesting too and I was excited to find it. Totally agree that big data is not all bad, in fact some marketers are using it to better improve products and experiences for their consumers. The conversation will definitely not end though--especially with Facebook's new Atlas product and the absolutely insane amount of information they have to sell on users.
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