How to Use Data Analytics to Improve Your Marketing Strategy

Facebook, Amazon, Spotify—name any leading tech company and you can bet it uses the entire range of data analysis technologies to keep its marketing strategy up to date with marketing trends. These technologies are partly responsible for why these tech giants have no competition in the market.

Big data allows these companies to fine-tune and personalise their services in ways that were never possible before. However, thanks to emerging analytics consulting companies, small businesses can use these technologies to improve their marketing strategies and match the services offered by the biggest companies in the market.

In this article, we walk you through the technologies small businesses can currently use to better match the needs of the market. We also discuss some specific ways you can improve your position in the market.

So without further delay, let’s get to the gist.

Data Analysis Technologies Small Businesses Can Use

Big Data Analytics

Big data is any set of data that is to big fit in a personal computer or to be analysed using traditional data analysis software such as spreadsheets. Big data is collected using complex algorithms in a process called data mining. 

It’s the sheer size of this data that makes it so useful. Analysis of this data gives clear insight into the market with high statistical significance. It also gives insight into the various special sections of the market that a company can target.

Businesses today can use big data analysis to determine market needs, find market gaps, and improve their products and marketing strategies to better meet those needs and gaps. 

Machine Learning

Words like “Neural Networks” and “Artificial Intelligence” sound like science fiction but these technologies have very real applications in data science. Machine Learning is a set of different algorithms that are able to evolve and get an increasingly deeper insight into data. Some of these algorithms are inspired by a biological process such as natural selection. The most popular set of algorithms, neural networks, are made to mimic a simplified model of the human brain.

What makes machine learning algorithms so useful is that they can learn similarly to how humans learn. These algorithms can perform analyses that are too complex for a traditional algorithm, such as recognising pictures of a cat. Machine learning algorithms can do many things that a human brain can do, only faster. 

Today, businesses can use machine learning algorithms to analyse the consumer market and to gain insight into individual users to improve targeted advertising.

Data Wearhousing

Big data cannot be analysed traditionally. This is why big data companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have dedicated data centers where all the mined data is kept and analysed. These data centers can cost hundreds of millions to make and tens of millions to operate every year. This is too high of an entry price for most businesses to reach. 

However, thanks to emerging business intelligence consulting firms, small businesses no longer need to own a data center to benefit from data analysis technologies. These companies have shared data centers where small business can store their data and only pay for the storage their data uses for storage and analysis.

Ways to Improve Your Marketing Strategy

Analysing the Market

As discussed before, most businesses today have competitors all over the globe. Even if you offer local services, service providers all over the city can reach your target market via the internet and no part of the market belongs to you just by proximity. Data analytics can help you understand your competitors and the market better and make informed marketing decisions.

Targeting the Right Audience

Targeted marketing is arguably the best thing that happened to advertising since the invention of printing. Market leaders advertise their products to the general public via TV ads and billboards, and a good portion of the market responds to their ads. However, this can’t work for niche brands that target only certain sections of the market. 

Thanks to targeted advertising, no matter how niche your brand is, you can target your ads to only the people interested in your brand instead of wasting money on advertising to the general public.

Predicting Market Trends

The only constant in marketing is change. Strategies that work today probably won’t work tomorrow and the only way to keep your marketing strategy in sync with market trends is by using machine learning algorithms to predict the progression of the market. 

Chaos is a challenge for market leaders but an opportunity for niche brands. If a small business I able to adapt to a changing market quicker than the market leader, it can capture a larger portion of the market.

deltAlyz is a  business intelligence consulting company that brings state-of-the-art business intelligence solutions to businesses of all sizes. deltAlyz is giving small businesses access to the technologies they need to compete with their larger competitors. They also offer cross-platform mobile development and cyber security services.

Want to get ahead of the competition? Get in touch now!