Business development is on an ever-changing route. While this has been evident, the twists and turns of recent have baffled even the most experienced marketers and entrepreneurs. From what everyone can observe, you need much more than simple creativity.
Creativity yields ideas, but they are only stuck in a theoretical plan if not executed correctly. Thus, artificial intelligence, audience segmentation, multimedia-based visual marketing, and other methods have taken over almost every industry.

No matter how impactful these trends are, they are all inseparably connected to the concept of big data. All the most prominent companies base their business model on big data and utilize it so that they can achieve the best results with the minimum workforce, finances, and mistakes.
In this article, we’ve decided to focus on the concept of big data. To help you understand the importance of it, we’ll dissect the term itself and analyze why it should be embedded deep into your business strategy.

What Exactly Is Big Data?

In its most basic and literal form, big data is a term that refers to large amounts of information. For information to be considered big data, it needs to come from two or more different sources.
Anything can be big data and can come in a myriad of forms. Satellite imaging, browsing history, credit records, liked videos on YouTube – all these things can be tracked and stored.
Due to the recent controversies around data leakages, this might seem scary, but there is nothing to fear. Collected big data is being used to create mini behavior profiles all over the internet, regardless of the website. The purpose of these profiles can be a multitude of things.
Improving customer support, better ad placement, better efficiency on websites and more are all possible due to the existence of big data. To understand it fully, we need to know how can you gather big data.
The gathering process
Big data can essentially be gathered in different ways. These three ways are:
Asking users directly for permission using an opt-in or a lead form
Out of the three ways used, this one is a little outdated, but EU-imposed regulations have once again imposed business to include it in their terms and conditions, as well as privacy policies.
Using tracking software
There are various apps and software that can track your cell phones and computers. With it, companies can gather big data related to your browsing habits and other details. Through tracking software, an e-commerce website can see that you’ve only spent 30 seconds browsing their sneaker section.  
Using cookies
Using cookies is probably the most familiar method to you. Due to many breaches in recent months, EU countries have made their content-related laws much stricter. As a result, any business that wants to allow EU citizens to browse their pages has to notify the user about the use of these cookies.
A notification can come in many different forms; usually through a classic “I agree” button or more unconventional “By clicking anywhere on this page, you consent to the use of cookies.”
If you choose to utilize big data as a part of your business plan, you can incorporate all three ways of gathering data. Now that we’ve covered the basic, it’s time to delve deep into all the different methods of growing your business with big data.

How Big Data Improves Your Customer Profiles

Out of all the methods of use, improving existing customer information is perhaps the most important and the most straightforward one. Analytics is the most important facet of every business plan, as it gives a basis for every action. The more information you have, the less likely you are to make a mistake and to focus on the wrong group of customers.
The typical customer profile contains the following information: name, location, purchasing history and emails sent. With big data, you can find out so much more. Adding cookies to your website may allow you to collect big data in the form of:
The device your customer is using
With this information, you can adjust the format of the page for their particular smartphone or tablet model. Adjusting for mobile is important, but not every model and OS are the same.
Average time spent on a page
Whether you’re posting blogs or videos, big data can allow you to see where things go wrong. Why does this customer only watch 10 seconds of my videos? Why do customers only spend 15 seconds on a select page? Questions like this can be of great help of improving overall customer experience if answered using big data.
Browsing habits
Big data enables you to find out the average browsing habits of your customers. A large majority of experts says that browsing habits are the most important piece of information a marketer should know.
When using big data, you can pinpoint the exact time people spend on the internet. Such a revelation can help you post the right things at the right time. Posting when the majority of your customers are sleeping isn’t very logical, is it?
Knowing this extra information about your customers will lead to even deeper analysis. What do we mean by that? Let’s take a look.

Going even deeper
Big data is often understood as merely categorizing and collecting textual data, but it’s already much more than that.
Companies like Etihad Airlines and Wells Fargo use big data to strengthen the functioning of their call centers. Instead of settling on level-one and level-two-type information, they are orienting themselves towards sentiment analysis.
Sentiment analysis is directly connected to Artificial Intelligence (AI). By collecting voice recordings from the employees’ conversations with customers, these companies can analyze the details of their customers’ voices.
AI programs can harness valuable info about voice pitch, emotions, and the tone of the voice. If your company has a call center, you can use such heads-up information.

Less effort, more success
A business can be deemed profitable if it makes advances. A good advance, according to many people in the industry revolves around lessening the time and effort spent. However, a truly exceptional advance in terms of business success is increasing the profit and general success of the company. Big data can help you achieve just that.
With minimal effort invested, you can watch the data being collected. When it’s time to take action, you will be ready.
Rolling out campaigns is done much more smoothly with big data. Knowing more about your customers will help you focus your marketing and your products alike. The greatest changes are seen when utilizing PPC campaigns.
The money will be allocated efficiently, without a major risk of the wrong people clicking on your ads. Even when you do manage to attract new customers, big data can help you retain them. But how?
Both retention and attraction
By enhancing your marketing campaigns, big data has shown that it can attract new customers. Many entrepreneurs focus on this, while at the same time they’re losing customers by not listening to them.
Big data can help you get a reading of the online sentiment regarding your product and brand. People have a habit of talking about the services they’ve used. Knowing the general consensus will aid you greatly in understanding your customers better.
While the internet, in general, can be a great echo chamber, big data can help you unravel its mysteries. Having a clear insight into the general opinion about your company is one way to do it. The knowledge you acquire will help you prevent any problems before they appear or exacerbate. Additionally, you can also highlight what works and make things easier for you and your team.

Why Efficiency Is Still Important

Contrary to popular belief, having an efficient system is important. It’s more important than ever. Some might find the previous statement contradictory due to the overwhelming use of AI and other programs in today’s business world.
Big data highlights the importance of efficiency by doing all the heavy lifting for your team. Due to a myriad of analytical data being collected, you won’t have to use valuable energy and brainpower to estimate. Instead, you will be sure, and each decision will take much less time to be executed.
Using big data will allow you to focus on the tasks that can’t be automated. The creativity of you and your team alike fill take on a different flux and be allocated into things that matter. Better energy allocation will result in your business growing.
To conclude
Big data is the gateway to more knowledge about your customers. A result of more knowledge will be better-crafted marketing campaigns, quality products. Knowing your customer body will also help you retain them, not just attract them. With big data, you will save money by having more precise marketing campaigns.
Energy will also be saved, as you and your team won’t be required to estimate things. Better execution and better results will be visible in a short time span. Neither difficult nor challenging, big data is your gateway to success.