How Manufacturers Can Use Big Data to Acquire New Customers

For industrial and manufacturing marketers, the integration of data, technology and marketing is producing a wealth of new opportunities to boost revenue streams. However, figuring out which technologies to implement and which data to utilize has challenged more than one B2B marketer.

Customer data is often stored in separate systems such a billing, inventory and service center logs. Marketers are increasingly charged with the task of implementing solutions to manage this data where in the past, this was handled by IT. Additionally, marketers are often limited to using lists from common data sources that provide zero competitive advantage.

Industrial marketers have primarily relied on traditional methods such as print advertising and tradeshows to find new customers. Integrating and managing customer data has been seen as more of a B2C strategy. However, as today’s B2B buyers seek targeted and personalized offers, manufacturers must catch up to their B2C counterparts and use data-driven marketing strategies to engage prospects across multiple channels.

According to a survey of B2B marketers by StrongView Systems, marketers are reallocating their budgets in favor of more personalized tactics driven by data:

60.66% increase in Email Marketing
48.91% increase in Social Media
40.16% increase in Mobile Marketing

marketing channels

What about Big Data?

As is the case in most industries, manufacturers have plenty of data, but they are also seeking ways to unlock value from Big Data sets.

“When tackling the challenges and opportunities presented by data, leading manufacturing companies are 89% more likely than followers to see the need to unlock hidden information from big data rather than just controlling large data sets.” (Aberdeen Research)

According to Aberdeen’s research, when prioritizing data initiatives, leading manufacturing companies are:

34% more likely than followers to integrate data systems to support decisions
54% more likely to define best practices within a data-driven framework
45% more likely to use big data and analytics to combine manufacturing data and to support the enterprise platform

Leverage Big Data Insights Without the Big Price Tag of Implementation

Industrial marketers are increasingly turning to solutions such as Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) to leverage the Big Data ecosystem. DaaS is a service approach in which a vendor sources, structures, and delivers constant streams of in-market prospects to a company in real-time. Rather than focusing on implementing the infrastructure and hiring a slew of data scientists, DaaS mines Big Data sets for “just the right” data.

These may be prospects sourced through web mining technology, such as RFP scraping, buying behavior indicators, and company expansion signals. Or social media networks can be monitored for purchase power signals, such as discussions about “looking for an equipment supplier”, a competitor’s name, or management changes. Based on any number of triggers, streams of qualified prospects are delivered on a daily basis so a company can take immediate action.

Boost Customer Acquisition through Web Mining

A powerful way to source new prospects is through web mining. Patented web mining technology goes deeper than the “surface web” to source prospects who are actively searching and in-market for your products.

Take a look at some of the ways web mining can be used in the following example of a vehicle equipment manufacturer:

manufacturer

Social media can also be monitored for purchase signals. 92% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. And by spending as little as 6 hours per week, over 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media. (Social Media Examiner)

In the example of the vehicle manufacturer, social networks can be monitored for triggers such as credit signals, venture capital investments, management changes, or active purchase signals.

Target Leads with Personalized Offers

Once these streams of prospects are identified, they are delivered to you in real-time for targeted campaigns using your channels systems, ad agency, or a DaaS vendor’s execution systems. For example in the case of our vehicle manufacturer, a social prospect is sourced, a pre-customized ad template is matched to what the prospect is researching, and an offer is sent through any number of channels, such as email, mobile ads, or on-demand direct mail.

Data-driven strategies offers many opportunities to increase market share. And more manufacturers are making the decision to shift their marketing dollars from traditional advertising outlets to those driven by data.

We recently hosted a webinar on how manufacturers can use big data to target and acquire in-market prospects. You can watch the webinar for free by clicking on the image below.