Internet marketing has become a favorite technique for promoting a business on the web. The technology has become so popular that people have started to run their entire business online – only utilizing the power of this marketing method to attract visitors to their website and make money. There are many ways to use internet marketing to reach more potential customers and to grow a business – whether it is based solely online or also have an offline division. A recent study by Adobe revealed that the internet had changed marketing. In fact, 76% of the participants that took part in the survey agreed that marketing had advanced much more in the last two years than it has in the last half-century. Less than 50% of internet marketers feel like they are proficient in the art of promoting a brand or website's presence on the web and only 40% of online marketers reported that their current marketing efforts are efficient. Even though many do not feel acquainted with internet marketing yet, as much as 66% of CMOs report that they believe Internet advertising will account for over three-thirds of all marketing spends within the next few years.
Internet marketing takes a lot of effort and time, but without this technique, nothing would be possible on the web. Just publishing a website and expecting visitors to flock in and start hitting the "buy" button does not work. Promoting the site itself, as well as the content that is hosted on the site, is essential – this is where internet marketing comes in. There are many different techniques to consider when it comes to internet marketing. One problem that many companies face is the fact that they rush into things too soon as learning more about their target audience and what they can do to grow their business to new levels take too much time.
What many companies do not realize is the fact that they already have a lot of data that can be used to take their business to new heights. Big data and small data – these are two terms you have most likely heard of before if you own a business or work with marketing, especially when it comes to corporate brands. Unfortunately, even though companies and marketers know these terms, they often fail to realize that the data can be used to grow their business. O r they focus on "big data" instead of "small data," and find that the data they are looking at does not hold any significant value for their company. Let's discuss the difference between big data and small data.
Big data is a term that refers to an enormous collection of data. That could include a database with customer files, including their invoices, products and services they have purchased from the company, the payment methods they use and more. These lists can contain millions of records as a company can grow rather quickly, especially when it has been in business for many years. Utilizing big data for internet marketing campaigns will not help the company writing right content for their target audience as the data is too vague and too much.
Small data, on the other hand, are usually segments extracted from big data. For example, if a database exists with an extensive collection of customer files, the company may retrieve details about the customers that buys from them most and the products they sell most. By looking at the particulars of the customers they obtain from the big data server, they can learn more about who they should be targeting – thus helping the company set up better targeting options. A list of top selling products can also be extracted, analyzed, compared to competitive products and a price increase may be a good option to increase the company's profit.
By considering the difference between big data and small data, it becomes evident why a company may fail at identifying opportunities when they utilize information from their big data server without filtering the data into "small data" segments. By looking at an extensive database of unfiltered data, how would the individuals that are analyzing the data be able to know what they should look for? Now, consider filtering through the data and displaying only a few hundred or a few thousand entries to the analyzers – this would be much easier to analyze and finding opportunities that can be used to help better target an audience through internet marketing and optimize their existing campaigns to be more successful. Using small data can also help a company boost the results they gain from micro influencer marketing as they would be able to determine better who they want to target and how they want to target their audience.
Companies often spend too much time trying to find data related to how they can improve their business when they already have a lot of useful information right in front of them. By extracting small data from big data servers, a company can analyze their existing customers and target audience, learn more about their behavior, and then make adjustments in the way the company is run to implement strategies that would effectively improve the success of the business.
Claire John is a Technology, and Internet-Marketing Adviser. She writes what she learns. Claire is passionate about utilizing her diverse skill set to develop online marketing strategies and create efficiency to enhance her client's experiences. Claire has been featured in ProvenSEO, Tweakyourbiz, etc.