Small businesses are looking to big data to get an edge against their more established competitors. Big data is becoming more important in the new economy. Industries are becoming more consolidated and traditional lenders are more averse to funding unproven start-ups. Without a stellar big data strategy in place, many businesses are doomed to the day they open their doors. The five-year failure rate for businesses is already estimated to be around 50%. Unfortunately, this figure might be even higher for companies that don?t utilize big data to their full advantage. One of the most important ways for brands to make the most of big data it?s with marketing. Relying on predictive analytics and machine learning will significantly enhance any marketing campaign. This could lower the failure rate for businesses.
Big Data is Redefining Small Business Marketing
Marketing is essential for generating sales and helping to get a new business off the ground. As a business, you want to focus your marketing efforts on tools that will give you the biggest return on your investment. If you are struggling to grow your business, you will want to focus on some data driven marketing strategies that deliver great results. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to reach people is via social media. Big data makes targeting people on social media easier than ever, especially since machine learning tools help optimize your campaigns. According to We Are Social, 45% of the global population are social media users (a massive amount of 3.5 billion people). All of the marketing strategies listed below are thus social media related. They have a tremendous treasure trove of data on your customers as well.
Make social media a priority
Social media provides huge opportunities to generate sales and manage your brand, but it can also be a massive challenge to small business owners or entrepreneurs that wear multiple hats. Our number one tip is thus to make social media a priority for you and your business. Find your most creative time, and dedicate that time to social media content creation.
Focus on one social media platform
Focus your efforts on one social media platform, rather than three or four. Only once you learn the nuances of that channel, you can look into branching out to other platforms. Generating leads and building a customer base on social media takes time. So, sticking to one platform instead of spreading yourself thin over various platforms increases your chances of success tenfold. Keep in mind that some social networks have more data on customers than others. They provide better marketing opportunities.
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Set social media goals and create a strategy that aligns with them
You need to know what you want to achieve by using social media for your business. Is it to generate sales, build your brand, and connect with customers or all of the above? Be sure to create a social media plan or strategy that aligns with your goals.
Share who you are as a brand and business
Remember, social media is social. People are on social media to share content with their friends, connect with family members and connect with you as a brand. They won?t connect with your brand if you don?t share things that are human and that they can relate to. What makes you unique as a brand or business, and why would they want to follow you on social media?
Share great and informative content
Big data is also great for content creation. You can use it to monitor tools like Google Trends to see what is popping and write the content readers are looking for. Listen to your customers and connect one-on-one instead of just pushing products. What kind of questions are they asking? This not only provides valuable insight into your customers? preferences, but it also builds a loyal customer base and can be potential topics for blog posts or social media content. Looking at the online casino niche, we can see this in practice. Try Novibet online games to get a feel for what constitutes as informative content and to see how this business s answers their clients? questions. This online casino also makes use of state-of-the-art software to ensure that users get the best experience possible via different platforms such as PC and mobile.
Learn from the best
Follow your peers and competitors, both inside and outside of your field. You can do this by creating Twitter lists or using the Facebook pages watch tool to follow brands that you know post great content consistently. See what works for them. Are they posting photos, videos or text only content? What are they talking about?
Create a social media content calendar
Big data makes automating your social media strategies easier than ever. You can use big data tools to create a social media content calendar that contains a comprehensive overview of everything you want to send out to social media within the next few months or even the entire year. This includes major company events, product releases, and holidays that you as a business want to celebrate.
Create and post content consistently
Remember that passion creates great social media content. So, pick a topic that you love to talk about. The more passionate you are about a topic the easier and more fun it will be to create original content around that topic.
Compile a database of existing or potential customers and target them with social media marketing
Compile a customer file of all past customers or just a network of people that could be potential customers. This list should include their emails (at least), but you can include any other information that would be important to you. You can upload this list onto Facebook as a custom audience in your ads manager. This will make sure that your ads appear in front of these people on Facebook and Instagram. This will help you build a relationship with your customers, nurture and educate them and ask for referrals. The possibilities are endless.
Big data is the solution to modern small business marketing challenges
Small business owners must appreciate the importance of big data in 2019. Without big data, companies are going to struggle to adapt and develop optimal marketing strategies.
