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Statistics and Predictions for the Future of Marketing Strategy

big data marketingHow will marketing strategy change in the next five years? That’s the question Gigya tries to answer in its new white paper, “5 Ways Marketing Will Change in the Next 5 Years.” Three words dominate Gigya’s predictions—data, permission, and personalization.

There are real statistics that show how the focus of marketing in recent years has already shifted to these three strategic imperatives, and that shift will dominate the next five years. Gigya shares the following statistics to back up its predictions:

  • The big data market will grow at an annual rate of 31.7% through 2016, which is seven times higher than the overall growth rate for information and communications technology. (via International Data Corp.)
  • An estimated 2.2 million terabytes of new data are created each day (via Autonomy)
  • 90% of big data is unstructured, “human information” from Twitter updates, Facebook posts, website clicks, and so on.
  • Data collection volume increased in 2012 from an average of 10 collection events per page to 50. That’s a 400% increase. (via Krux)
  • 40% of users decide not to log into a website or app using their social network accounts due to concerns about how their personal information will be used.

With those statistics in mind, here are the five predictions Gigya offers in its white paper for the next five years in marketing strategy:

  1. Massive data collection across multiple touch points becomes standard.
  2. Marketers get a firmer grip on the data they manage.
  3. Social media grows into big data.
  4. Permission marketing becomes the norm.
  5. Programmatic marketing ends the age of generalizations.

For marketing experts and practitioners, these predictions probably don’t come as much of a surprise. Big data, mobile, and personalization have been the big buzz topics for more than the past 12 months and will only continue to grow in importance. I think the most interesting part of the white paper is within the section about the need for marketers to get a “firmer grip” on the data they manage.

The white paper suggests the need for “modern dynamic databases equipped to handle large, varied datasets,” which data scientists and data analysts need to “mine, synthesize, and convert into actionable insights.” Those are two very different parts of the big data puzzle, and each deserves attention. The tools are meaningless if you don’t have the expertise to turn a massive amount of data into something useful. Similarly, the brightest minds can’t do much if they can’t collect and crunch the data in the ways they require to extract the actionable information.

What do you think about Gigya’s predictions for marketing strategy in the next five years? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Ilker

5 Steps to Generate Revenue with Big Data

cloud big dataAccording to a new white paper from Gigya, “Harnessing Big Data to Grow Revenue,” there is a significant gap between collecting data from social media and using that data to create targeted brand marketing campaigns. Gigya explains that by using social logins on brand websites, companies can close this gap and generate new revenue.

In simplest terms, social logins enable website visitors to log into that site (or mobile application) using their preferred social media profile usernames and passwords. Rather than remembering a separate password for the brand’s site or application, the user logs in with his Facebook account or Twitter account.

In its white paper, Gigya explains that, “users who log in to a website using an existing social identity are essentially granting that website permission to access their first-party social data such as full name, interests, education, social connections, email address, location, and more.” It’s a huge opportunity that most companies are missing.

However, collecting user data through social logins is just the first step to actually generate revenue with that data. Gigya offers five steps to successfully collect and use that data:

  1. Use a “dynamic-schema, secure, cloud-based solution” to store and manage all of the social and behavioral data that is collected.
  2. Implement social logins whenever possible.
  3. Use automated data capture to ensure data collected is accurate since social profiles change frequently.
  4. Increase user engagement to collect more data through social plugins on brand websites, commenting, sharing, and so on.
  5. Integrate the collected data into third-party marketing platforms, such as email marketing, advertising, web analytics, and recommendation tools, to personalize marketing campaigns.

I would add that another important step is to hire talent that understands how to extract meaningful and actionable information from the data that is collected. This is an area where most companies are faltering. Collecting, storing, and integrating data into various systems and tools is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what the data actually means.

Data can be extracted and manipulated to tell just about any store an analyst wants, but hiring a person or team of people who understand data and marketing can be challenging. In other words, great marketing data scientists are few and far between in 2013, but the importance of the role to a company shouldn’t be undervalued. After all, effective data evaluation can make the difference between revenue generation and revenue losses.

What do you think about the big data gap? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Dave532

Brands Reach Influencers with Klout for Business

klout 100Klout is known as a tool to quantify a person’s influence online. Whether you like the way Klout measures online influence or not, the tool is useful for brands that want to connect their messages with people who have the eyes and ears of the brand’s target audience.

Until recently, brands could offer influencers products and experiences by awarding them Klout Perks. Now, companies can access analytics about how influencers are engaging with their brands on Facebook and Twitter with the launch of Klout for Business.

According to the official Klout for Business launch announcement, businesses can learn which topics their audiences are influencing others about, so they can deliver more focused content that drives word-of-mouth marketing. The Klout for Business dashboard will identify the influencers among the brand’s Twitter and Facebook followers along with key demographic data such as age, gender, and location.

These are just the first steps to growing Klout for Business. Tim Peterson of Adweek reports that the future of Klout for Business could include targeted advertising integrated with Facebook and Twitter and external data integration where businesses could upload their own customer data to Klout for even better targeting.

Mobile VIP Perks are already being tested where Klout users with the Klout mobile app installed on their mobile devices can be identified by the business when the enter that business’ store or physical location giving the business the opportunity to personally greet that customer or extend a special offer. Tim explains,

“Klout has tested the [Mobile VIP Perks] product with some small restaurants in San Francisco and concuted a bigger test during SXSW with Cirque du Soleil where influencers got upgraded seats for a performance. ‘It’s a really exciting feature that is getting a lot of interest from businesses. We’ll be rolling out to big partners with it soon,” [said Klout CEO Joe Fernandez].”

Klout reports that content produced by Klout influencers drives four times as many retweets on average as content posted by non-influencer social media users, and people who see content from Klout influencers are more than twice as likely to click through to an advertiser page. Furthermore, Klout claims that people who visit product pages recommended by Klout influencers spend more than twice as long on that site.

Undoubtedly, brands will be very interested in Klout for Business, and Klout is heading in the right direction by working towards offering a complete enterprise marketing platform based on its algorithmic models that analyze billions of data points to create influence scores. Once brands can integrate their own customer data with Klout data, Klout for Business should really gain traction.

What do you think of Klout? Klout for Business? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on measuring influence and marketing to that influence.

In-Store Lines Can Hurt Brands Online This Holiday Shopping Season

holiday shopping mallLast week was a huge week for retailers as shoppers ushered in the holiday shopping season by taking advantage of big sales.

With big sales and lots of shopping happening, it makes sense that retail brands got a lot of exposure in social media conversations last week. However, it wasn’t expensive commercials or big sales that people were talking about on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

According to the Advertising Age Brand Chatter Chart (powered by Bluefin Labs), most people were tweeting and posting about the lines they were waiting in at retail stores so they could make their holiday purchases. That means retail  and consumer product brands have another social media reputation management metric to track which could have a significant impact on sales during the holiday season.

Advertising Age shared some tweets that frustrated consumers published last week, and many of those tweets are ones which those brands need to address — not just through social media engagement but also through improved brand experiences at the retail level.

For example, a consumer at a Toys ‘R’ Us retail store published a tweet that asked people to “pray for me” or “send booze” to help him get through the negative experience he was living through as he waited in line to make his purchases. Another consumer tweeted about Old Navy saying, “Got up at 5am. 2nd in line at Old Navy. And it’s winter outside.”

Neither of these tweets paint the respective brands in a positive light. If enough consumers publish these kinds of tweets and social media posts while they’re waiting in line at specific retail locations or trying to purchase a specific branded product, it could have a significantly negative effect on brands’ sales.

I’m willing to bet that very few retailers and consumer product brands, which are popular for holiday gift giving, are tracking these types of tweets and conversations at all. Let’s hope that they take notice and take the appropriate steps to alleviate the frustrations of standing in long lines during the holiday shopping season before tweets from bored and annoyed consumers take a bite out of critical holiday revenues.

What do you think? Is your brand tracking these types of seasonal tweets and social media conversations this holiday season? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Korosy Istvan

The Relationship Between Brands and TV as Told by Social Data

Bluefin Labs is a social TV analytics company that uses social data to analyze how audiences feel about brands and ads that they see on television. Recently, Bluefin Labs released data that shows some interesting relationships between brands and TV based on audience conversations, activities, and behaviors on the social web.

For example, Adweek reports that the study revealed people who talk about Walmart on the social web are likely to tweet and comment about very different television shows than people who talk about Target. There is similar disparity between Coke and Pepsi. Sports television is a top source for Coke social brand buzz, but that’s not the case for Pepsi. In fact, none of the top 10 television shows that correlate with Pepsi social conversations are sports programs. Analytics to determine brand “top 10” lists were gathered primarily from public Twitter and Facebook posts as well as from some blogs about television.

Bluefin Labs also dissects the data using consumer data. For example, the top television shows and networks that correlate with online social conversations for cat owners can be contrasted to a list for dog owners.

For brands, this data can be extremely useful in targeting television shows for ad buys that are likely to drive not only the highest return on investment in terms of sales but also in terms of social brand buzz. That brand buzz on the social web delivers two things to brands: increased brand awareness and recognition as well as a direct line to consumer thoughts, perceptions, and behaviors. It’s an amazing source for market research data. Brands that have social media and content marketing strategies in place can leverage the online conversation, join it, and reap even greater rewards.

This type of research data is expected to grow in terms of depth and availability in the near future. For example, Bluefin Labs plans to dive deeper into the content of social conversations in addition to the cause-effect relationship between television and social data.

There is no doubt that this kind of data is very valuable to brands. In a consumer environment that’s louder and more cluttered than ever, targeting ads and listening to consumer conversations is more important than ever.

What do you think of the Bluefin Labs social TV data? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng