A couple of weeks ago, a good friend of mine stopped by the office to chat business. He's owned his own company for the past four years or so and works specifically in the automotive world. His plan is to sell his company in the next couple of years and retire in Florida.
While enjoying a drink together, he vented about the frustration working in the world of automotive. And he made a spectacular analogy that can be applied to any business.
"Kyle," he said. "Giving big data to car dealership owners is like giving a bottle of bourbon and keys to a Beamer to a 16-year-old. There's absolutely nothing good that can come of it."
While I work with plenty of dealership owners who this statement would NOT apply to, his point wasn't lost on me. I'd seen it recently in a number of different industries.
Here's sort of how it works. A business owner, in his or her rush to crunch data and determine the almighty R.O.I. (return on investment), can make rash decisions without understanding the implication of what they are doing.
Let's think about it like this.
Most of the best restaurants in the world have bussers. These silent assistants refill water glasses of diners, whisky away dirty dishes, replace dropped utensils, and pick up on countless other details that lead to the overall spectacular experience of a customer.
These men and woman don't sell anything. They usually don't result in more wine being ordered or the 50 day aged steak being served. But their contribution to the overall experience is invaluable.
Think about the social media for your business. Let's say that you are monitoring your social components and catch a couple of customers who are ticked off. You're able to do damage control to save your reputation. What's the ROI here? How can you measure it?
So here are a few things that you SHOULD do with "big data" - and I'm NOT talking about using it to fire all of your vendors.
1. Identify the opportunity.
Let's go back to the basics for starts. Your Google analytics gives you a treasure trove of data. It will teach you where customers are coming from - town by town. It will show you what types of mobile devices they are using and how they are engaging your website. It will show you where they came from...where they are going...and what they didn't like about your site. There are tremendous opportunities to be found in terms of analytics, but you need to make sure to properly tie it into your marketing and advertising strategy for your business.
2. Understand your customers through social eavesdropping.
Your customers are voluntarily sharing a terrifying amount of data on social media. From their car breaking down to their engagement... from the rash their kid has to how they need a water filter. They are talking about you and they are talking about your competition. Do you know it...and do you know what they are saying?
3. Sniper your marketing.
You know when they last bought from you. You know what their online buying habits are. You know what other sites they looked at before yours...and what sites they looked at after yours. You can send targeted advertising to 35-year-old women who live within four different zip codes, who are married, have children, have an average household income of $100K plus, who drive a pickup truck but are in the market to buy a car in the next 3 months and who have made charitable donations to religious organizations in the past two months. Why would you NOT want to use all of this data? Think you have to pay for lists for it? Think again. It's all on social media.
My friend is right. Too much of anything can be a bad thing. Isn't that how the movie The Lord of the Rings made it big? The right tool in the right hands can be incredibly dangerous...or incredibly powerful. It all depends on what you do with it.
We want to know what YOU think. In the comments below, let us know how you've seen big data help or hurt companies.
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