Much of the focus around the potential for mining big data has been geared toward marketers as well as the vast information about existing and new customers and markets that can be gleaned from using business analytics.
But many marketers are struggling to find useful ways to tap big data, notes Frank Reed, managing editor of Marketing Pilgrim.
Reed cites a recent study by web analytics consultancies eConsultancy and Lynchpin that finds that more than 50% of marketers say that only half of the data collected is useful to their businesses.
“One way that marketers can make their lives easier is to collect only the pertinent data rather than collecting everything under the sun and thus creating an opportunity to miss valuable in formation in the clutter,” Reed says.
The study also finds that almost half of the respondents don’t have business intelligence strategies or don’t integrate web analytics with larger business intelligence efforts at all.
The study finds that among marketers:
- 40% have common key performance indicators for web and non-web data
- 22% have common teams and processes for web and non-web data
- 11% have common technology platforms for web and non-web data
- 14% don’t have BI strategies
“It could be that many marketers are not statisticians or are not as mathematically inclined as today’s data driven world demands,” Reed notes.
He goes on to say that marketing employees who focus on creative activities are intimidated about the numbers generated by analytics that are aimed at measuring campaigns. He compares it to the void that exists between engineers and sales people.
The problem is not limited to the marketing department. The tsunami of big data is also leaving sales representatives struggling to stay afloat, according to a study by CSO Insights, a sales effectiveness research firm.
Nearly nine out of 10 executives believe that sales reps miss opportunities because they can’t keep up with information about customers and prospects, the survey notes.
Sales reps may have to search as many as 15 different data sources, including their CRM systems, Facebook, LinkedIn, search engines and other data sources, according to the survey. The executives report that having technology that can handle the demands of big data would have a significant impact.
To tackle these and other challenges, marketing leaders should assemble big data teams, advises CMO.com.
Here’s how the article suggests building that team:
- Identify where data is being generated and how it’s managed
- Add employees with advanced training in experimental design, statistics, and machine learning – employees who can turn data into actionable insight
- Seek out data scientists who have the soft skills to effectively work with others across the company
- Find those adept at business translation, who are subject matter experts and can design the questions marketing should ask of big data
- Be sure data scientists are valued in the organization; because of the great demand for employees with these skills, they will leave quickly if they aren’t tasked with big problems that are core to the company
Next Steps:
- Subscribe to our blog to stay up to date on the latest insights and trends in big data and business analytics.
- Join us this Thursday, August 23 at 1 p.m. EDT for our complimentary webcast, “In-Memory Computing: Lifting the Burden of Big Data,” presented by Nathaniel Rowe, Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group and Michael O’Connell, PhD, Sr. Director, Analytics, TIBCO Spotfire. In this webcast, Rowe will discuss recent findings from Aberdeen Group’s December 2011 study on the current state of big data, which shows that organizations that have adopted in-memory computing are not only able to analyze larger amounts of data in less time than their competitors – they do it much, much faster. TIBCO Spotfire’s Michael O’Connell will follow with a discussion of Spotfire’s big data analytics capabilities.
- Download a copy of the Aberdeen In-Memory Big Data whitepaper here.
