Let’s start this post with 2 graphs from Google Search Insight for the search query called “Big data” in Vietnam and in the world.
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The world has been discussing about “big data” since a long time ago, while Vietnamese marketers just started to learn about it from last May. From the map, we could easily notice that HCMC is the starting point and the only city at the moment looking for “big data”.
So what the heck is “big data”?
Actually the term “big data” itself is fairly understandable. Big Data is stored and standardized so that each data asset can be tied to a particular customer or audience segment. But how big to become big data? Business of varied sizes will find their own answers. “For some organizations, facing hundreds of gigabytes of data for the first time may trigger a need to reconsider data management options. For others, it may take tens or hundreds of terabytes before data size becomes a significant consideration.” – Jimmy Guterman.
Why does it matter?
Understanding big data will enhance decision making, insight discovery and process optimization. For now, big data is social data. Any activities occurred online are recorded across Social Media platforms such as Facebook, ZingMe, Google Plus… Therefore social media has become an integral of online marketing for last 3 years in Vietnam.
By owning an reliable big data, marketers can put into the so-called DMP (data management platform) to comply, combine and analyze collected data for better understanding of the crowd which in turn help convert fans/visitors into buyers . The DMP’s ability to take all of that Big Data from first-, second- and third-party sources and then organize it into meaningful audience segments makes it an ideal tool for audience targeting.
“There’s real value in being able to address the audience first to determine what to buy,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO of data provider eXelate. “By looking at your audience and how they’re interacting with a particular ad or promotion, you can take those learning and feed them into your current efforts and your next campaign.”
Dilemma
From a recent survey disclosed by Tom Simpson in his latest talk about ROI Management and Measurement on Social Media, 66% of business does not feel their social and marketing connected. 72% has no vision for social media and 88% of businesses who are running social marketing campaigns cannot draw new plans for upcoming years.
The results pointed out that business owners were still struggling in finding a way to take advantage of big data for their marketing objectives.
In my opinion, rather using big data as the core marketing tool, most of marketers are more into executing of what they have observed from success stories. They tend to put themselves into someone’s shoes and predict the result relatively based on what the others achieve. As the matter of fact, they inactively wait for the result by the end of the campaign. Then they would try to create a study case to learn on their own experiences and repeatedly apply the same method over and over again.
Since clients are likely believing in the so-called experiences through study cases, they also pretend (imagine) that they will receive the better results (at least the same result) if applying a same action plan from previous campaign. As the matter of fact, the bottom line of different campaigns are varied which are probably either positive or negative compared to the success story. However, It is by no means the easiest way to close the deals with client.
All right, so what are the first steps to start playing around with big data?
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1. Define the ROI wisely
We cannot just define the ROI only based on what you gain but reducing cost is also valuable as the whole. For example having a fan page, we are likely creating a call center for customer service at the minimal cost (salary for 1 or 2 page admins) which can save 2usd/call as regular.
2. Ensure social is fully tracked and shared
Google Analytic is the powerful tool to help track and understand your audiences interests and demands based on reliable metrics such as time on site, bounce rate, exit page…
The share metrics will help identify the exceptional content which can add special value to your products and service.
Forum seeding is only valuable if we can actually track how the crowd response to the piece of information.
3. Remarket your clients during campaign
By remarketing to people who join the campaign will help us analyze whether message is delivered to the right persons. so that we can adjust and adapt to the real circumstance.
Big data is new in Vietnam and marketers are learning and adapting the power of big data into their online marketing strategy. For now, some will be expecting to increase direct profits by executing data from CRM system, some may not be looking to their DMP for a direct increase in profit but may use their data to determine the conditions of their next marketing campaign, based on previous areas of success.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
