“Big data is the term for a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
Let’s examine this definition, because I for one, don’t quite agree with it. Santa in particular has a huge data set to handle at this time of year and Christmas is a time when we all want the latest, shiniest, biggest new toy on the block. You do not need to be riding a sleigh around the world at breakneck speed in a single night to realize the benefits of using all the data you have within your business. Data provides opportunities to be smart, flexible, and proactive BUT, many companies do not need big data as it is described in the above definition.
Big Data is not the statistics involving every car accident in your town. It is every accident involving cars in the world. Big Data is a term which is constantly misunderstood, misused and even overused—here’s proof: http://qz.com/151109/proof-that-big-data-is-one-of-the-most-overused-corporate-buzzwords-of-2013/
The problem is, we cannot even manage the B2B data we have today!
There are few stories yet of the successful use of Big Data in B2B lead generation, although in the B2C sector, you only need look at Amazon to see how Big Data can deliver. Many of the largest B2B organizations with sufficient resources to afford the high end tools required to manage Big Data are struggling. Most businesses using small data sets such as CRM tools have difficulty in avoiding data decay and keeping vital B2B details, such as contact addresses, names and numbers up to date.
Warehousing, collation, curation and best use of Big Data can gobble resources like the proverbial turkey. So you do not want to ask Santa for Big Data in your corporate stocking without taking stock of your current situation and problems you may be facing with the data you already have.
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Just because everyone is using the term “big data”, it does not mean you need to try to create unwieldy data sets. Think carefully about whether you really require expensive data management and warehousing tools to handle petabytes of information that you cannot put to best use.
5 Simple Ways To Make Big Data Really Work For Your B2B Organization:
1. Scale down your aspirations for Big Data. Focus on cleaning your current lists (email marketing, CRM, social, and so on) as a priority. Improve communication between departments. Break down those silos and bring sales and marketing closer to each other. Use your current smaller-scale data sets to deliver personalization and campaigns with imagination. You can target the audience you already know and love and get to know them better.
As an example, start by understanding who the real buyer in a company is. Identify the stakeholders in decision-making, rather than spending time on the people doing the research. This will assist with conversions and your sales team will love you for it. It is, after all, the time of good cheer and goodwill! Get a 360° view of your B2B demand generation.
2. Use social data. It may not qualify as the stereotypical Big Data, but it can actually be a big deal. You can generate suitably large data sets such as marketing campaign results – clicks, likes, shares, tweets, diggs and so on. This social data will help to provide your company with near real-time information about sales and marketing efforts. Patterns can become apparent in such data sets – for example, over multiple campaigns – that are invisible with limited data. This is one of the reasons why curation and sharing of data between departments is so important. To achieve a big data set you need to collect useful data and then manage it efficiently. The foundation for useful social data is a sustainable social strategy.
3. Understand buyer behaviour. Once the patterns are understood, you can track individual users. For example, with a cookie on your site and then a unique identifier within your system to begin to understand prospect behaviour. This means you can nurture prospects based on a known likelihood of behavior. It also allows every department to see the buyer’s position in the purchase process and pick up the ball accordingly. Follow best practice and use B2B lead generation tactics that are known to work.
4. Collaborate. Be alert that friction can occur when sales and marketing are both pushing for the same target. Understanding how to manage data is vital. For instance, your CRM system or behavioural data that you have collected from previous or current campaigns, on and offline, leads and conversions. Departments can then collaborate rather than gate-keep data to hit their own targets. As I’ve said before, change before you have to, and think conversion.
5. Plug the holes. A majority of B2B buyers will contact or entertain contact with your sales team far later in the day than previously. Typically, around 75% of the purchase-related research is now done online or independently, prior to making or taking a call that may lead directly to a sale. Marketing (plus all the information and content you have created for customer ‘self-study’) therefore, is playing a greater part in the buying process than ever before. The more data you can collect, the more indications you will have of your weaknesses and where you are losing potential sales or leads from the funnel. You can then structure your activities to re-capture those losses. Simplify and grow customer engagement through personalization.
Here’s what you should be asking Santa for in your B2B Success Stocking:
- Clean, up to date data and lists
- Better communication between departments
- Efficient data storage and management
- A clear understanding of prospect and buyer behaviour
- Sales and marketing collateral that fits that behaviour
And don’t forget to leave a carrot for the reindeer!
Are you using Big Data? How is it helping your B2B lead generation efforts? Please leave me a comment.
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Great post. It’s all about finding some low hanging fruit – that enables a quick win that can demonstrate value for future investment. And too often, the “big” part of Big Data scares people. It doesn’t really matter if the first bite is big, as long as the approach scales to big once value is proven.
What we did, and we do as a first step for clients, is take an interaction log for a list of customers (big or small), and run it through our engine which delivers interest data by extracting topics from the pages those customers have viewed. So you get an easily understandable output, which you couldn’t have without some Big Data analytics, and which can scale, once your Head of CRM or Head of Sales can see the value in having a real-time view of the implicit interests of every customer/prospect.
Thank you for your comment!
Louis,
I like your point about getting a 360 degree view of your demand generation. A big data initiative doesn’t have to be a big hairy beast to do so. By pairing data you already have access to in your CRM or MAP with knowable data from the Web and social, demand gen marketers can get a more complete view of their contacts and accounts and use that insight to focus on improving conversions.