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Introduction

Big Data is the term that is used for data that is huge and grows exponentially with time. It includes complex and large data sets, which are quite impossible to process and store with traditional data management tools. The data comes from a myriad of sources such as server log files, traditional databases, website visits, emails, social media engagements, and practically anything else. Every action that a user takes leaves a digital footprint and all of it is stored somewhere as part of Big Data.

Big Data is an important cornerstone for AI. It finds correlations and patterns in historical data and provides insights that could be very useful for various purposes in a business. To gather insights from such a vast amount of data, we need to process it in a way that traditional systems could not have done. Big Data is all about extracting useful insights by finding patterns and correlations that were earlier missed out in traditional systems. It has been estimated that around 90% of the data in the world came into existence in the last two years. 80% of the data is unstructured and difficult to analyze. The reason that we are storing such huge amounts of data today is to make intelligent decisions irrespective of the field that one is involved in.

Big data analysis in Marketing

BIG DATA FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Technology has advanced in power and reduced pricing. Big Data analysis was initially feasible only for the government and huge companies such as Google and Walmart. But now companies like Amazon and Microsoft offer affordable cloud-based services that enable small businesses to build their own Big Data systems and gather new insights. Many solutions have come up for small businesses to gather, analyze and gain insights. Some examples are SAS, ClearStory Data, and Apache Hadoop.

BENEFITS OF BIG DATA

Many companies, small and large, have started using Big Data and analytics to gain more insights to help the organization and its customers.

● Cost Reduction – Technologies such as Apache Hadoop, and also the cloud-based analytics, enable huge cost savings in the process of storing a huge quantity of data.
● Quicker and Informed Decisions – The high speed of software such as Hadoop and analytics software enables businesses to make smart decisions based on what they have inferred from the analysis.
● New Services and Products – Big Data analytics enables more and more companies to gauge the customers’ needs and market conditions and create new products.
● Control Online Reputation – Big Data analytics can help your company improve its online presence. It does so by performing sentiment analysis against very high volumes of online data.

BIG DATA & BIGGER MARKETING

With advancements in technology, strategizing digital marketing is completely based on data, and decisions are taken after analyzing the information provided by the collected data. With the increase in customer characteristics and the number of outputs, there is a large amount of unstructured and structured data generated to be processed. Traditional data processing tools do not carry the potential to process such a huge amount of data. so let’s take a look at the ways Big Data can be leveraged in digital marketing planning:-

1- Knowledge of Customer Psychology:-

With advancements in technology and improvement in IoT applications, chatbots, etc., companies have gained access to a huge amount of data related to their potential customers’ online activities and overall behavior. This data needs to be analyzed in the right way to extract useful insights, and Big Data analytics helps analyze this data easily. With its advanced capabilities, companies can map the entire customer journey and evaluate the touch points that convert into a sale. This way, quality engineers can help the brands to make data-driven decisions to create more leads Marketing campaigns are very important to grab the attention of the target audience and for conversion as well. It is important to target the audience after analyzing their behavior, liking, and dislikes, and for knowing the same, Big Data is the only reliable source. It is important to use good analytical tools to ensure that the information extracted is useful and valuable. The simplest example to understand the effect of Big Data is the use of cookies by companies. These cookies collect information about the online activities of the customer. This tracking of customer behavior helps to better understand customer behavior and enables the digital marketer to strategize and personalize the shopping journey. This personalization increases the conversion rate as the customers feel happy and important with the personalization of the journey.

2- Optimized Pricing Decisions:-

Generally, the prices of products are set according to the product cost, the perceived value of a product from the customer, and demand perspective and competitor pricing. But do you think in the present time where more personalized customer experience is expected, these factors are enough? The answer to this is definitely NO. Leveraging Big Data in the marketing strategy enables marketers to make pricing decisions as granular as possible. Big Data provides insights such as the products purchased by the customers over a certain period of time, their disposable income, and macroeconomic indicators such as interest rate, inflation rate, exchange rate, etc. These insights allow marketers to accurately price the products with the least chance of human error.

3- Better Allocation of Budget:-

While running a marketing campaign, the marketing budget is allocated to all the social media channels separately. The allocation of the budget is very challenging for the decision-makers as it is difficult to identify which particular channel will be contributing to the maximum growth. Big Data offers a solution to this problem by providing insights into the current marketing landscape and the potential future impact of marketing campaigns on sales, ROI, and profits. These insights, like the ones shown in, help digital marketers to smartly allocate their budget.

SOME OF THE TOOLS USED IN BIG DATA SOLUTIONS-

Hadoop

Apache Hadoop is one of the available techniques to handle Big Data in a commercially affordable manner. It is a reliable open-source software made specifically for distributed computing. It does the job of computing and analyzing millions of gigabytes of data by distributing the work on many computers. The computers involved need not be state-of-the-art supercomputers; they can be average standard computers. A wide variety of businesses and organizations use Hadoop.

SAS

SAS is a leading business analytics software provider since 1976. SAS helps businesses to transform their data into insights, which are helpful in smart decision-making and provide a new perspective to a business irrespective of whether your business is small, medium, or large sized. SAS enables businesses to accomplish more with less with the help of simple-to-use analytics and forecasting features. SAS’s note to businesses is a very simple one: ‘Identity what’s working. Fix what isn’t. And discover new opportunities.

Big Data does provide a large number of insights, but that must translate into better interaction. A technologically advanced and non-traditional approach to interaction is proposed: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Virtual Reality

Introduction

Virtual reality (VR) generates a simulated environment by simulating vision, smell hearing, and even touch for the users. The user feels like he is present in the VR experience. If there is something too dangerous or impractical to be done in real life, VR is the answer. VR has a wide variety of applications in various industries and fields such as sports, entertainment, medicine, architecture, marketing, and many more. It can cast a huge impact on our day-to-day lives.

VR FOR MARKETING

More and more businesses have started using this technology to demonstrate their products to prospective customers. VR is being adopted very quickly across the world and the number of VR headsets sold is estimated to reach 82 million by the year 2020.44 It is high time for marketers to incorporate VR technology as part of their marketing strategy. Following are some benefits of using VR technology for your marketing campaign.

Enhanced User Experience – A VR video can create a highly enhanced experience for the users; it transports the user to a different place. A good example would be an on-site experience at a hotel using a 360° virtual walkthrough. VR captures 100% attention of the user since once a user wears the headset, the user cannot be distracted by his phone and social media.

Showcase Your Products in Advance – Marketers can demonstrate the products before they are manufactured
using VR. Travel companies can showcase to the users the resort tour and not just hand over a brochure to them.

Be One Step Ahead – 62% of the users claim that they engage more with a brand that provides a VR experience. Customers have a higher recall rate for brands that used VR in their campaigns.

BEST PRACTICES TO IMPLEMENT VR IN YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY

1. Use Immersive Storytelling – VR is a very strong tool for brand storytelling. Your VR marketing strategy can be enhanced by increasing interactivity and using visual and audio cues.
2. VR is Only the Platform, Not the Message – VR is only a platform through which your brand can give out a message; VR itself is not a message. It is a platform that enables marketers to create more interacting and engaging content.
3. Analyse Your Existing Audience – It is important to analyze how your existing audience uses your content, and the channels they use to consume the content your brand makes. Get insights using Google Analytics and other analytic tools. Once the analysis is done, then you can incorporate VR content accordingly.

EXAMPLES OF VR IN MARKETING

Adidas

Adidas partnered with a tech marketing agency, named Somewhere else, in 2017 to create the experience of the mountain climbing journey in VR. The mountain climbing journey was interactive and it had a 360° view; users had to wear a headset and have remote controls in each hand. Viewers were able to follow the two athletes who had climbed the mountain. They followed the athletes rock by rock while climbing the mountain Delicatessen along with Rueck and Miller, virtually. This VR campaign promoted Adidas’s outdoor apparel and accessories line while also introducing the
users to an activity they might have never done before, which ultimately made the product line more appealing to its users.

TopShop: Fashion Show VR Experience

TopShop live-streamed its fashion show during London’s Fashion Week for the people who could not attend the show. They partnered with an emerging tech agency named Ignition, which enabled the customers to have a virtual seat in the front row. They had to wear a VR headset, which was linked to the event for getting a live view virtually. It made the viewers feel like they are sitting next to the celebrities who were attending the fashion show.

AUGMENTED REALITY

Augmented reality is the technology that extends our physical reality by overlaying information and virtual objects in real time in real-world scenes. It can be said in simple words that it adds information, sounds, graphics, etc. to the existing environment to create an artificial environment for its users. Augmented reality carries the potential to be a highly used, world-changing, technology. It can be accessed without buying any special accessories such as special eyeglasses or headwear, which are required for VR.

WHY AUGMENTED REALITY IN MARKETING?

Marketers are always on the look for better ways to engage the target audience and boost awareness about the
brand. Augmented reality can help brands achieve the same in the following ways.

1. Augmented reality (AR) can provide a highly realistic impression of their service or product to a potential customer. With the help of ‘try-on’ apps, customers can see what they’d look like in an outfit without actually having to try it.

2. As AR is relatively new to the market, customers are more likely to remember the marketing campaigns making use of AR technology. Only a limited number of brands are making use of AR technology for their campaigns.

3. The campaigns that are AR-focused are highly engaging and engrossing for the users. It gathers the complete mental attention of the user, which is much different from normal marketing campaigns.

Many brands have started using AR marketing to influence customers’ purchasing decisions. Most of the AR interactions are done via apps on tablets and smartphones.

PITFALLS OF AR IN MARKETING

1. Hardware limitation – Many AR interactions require the user to have upgraded hardware to support the lifelike experience on their device. A large number of users are left out of the audience just because they do not have sufficiently upgraded hardware.

2. AR Apps Required – It is not easy for marketers to get users to download an app just for experiencing their AR-enabled marketing campaign. Marketing the app itself and increasing downloads is a difficult task.

3. Fatigue – It is tiring for users to hold their phones or tablets in a particular position while going through the catalog. Keeping the camera open for a long period also drains the battery.

4. Budget – Having a dedicated app made, and getting a 3D catalog designed, requires a lot of work and a big marketing budget.

5. Singular Experience – To make the app worth downloading, marketers should avoid singular experiences from the app. Repeated viewing will bore the users. Marketers should think of an evolving experience for users from the app.

FUTURE OF AR IN MARKETING

In the coming years, the degree of interaction with consumers could reach the next level. Consumers will most likely abandon their desktops and laptops for getting involved with AR technology. Physical advertisements will become interactive and come to life right in front of the audience’s eyes.

Think about using AR glasses at a social gathering and getting to see public information such as the name, and profession of the guests nearby. Brands that understand AR’s potential are busy creating their own social media platforms to direct the marketing course without any external influences.

AR has the potential to dominate the e-commerce landscape since it makes perceiving the products a lot easier. The audience desires entertainment as well as practical functionality.

EXAMPLES

Home Depot

Home Depot, an American home supplies company, launched its app called ‘Project Color app’ in 2015, which uses AR technology to display how the paint would look in users’ houses. Lighting, shadows, and even the objects in the room were taken into account to create a lifelike experience of color on your wall. It enabled you to share the images on social media to get your friend’s opinions. They updated the app in 2017 to take it a step further and show how furniture, faucets, and other items would look in a prospective customer’s home.

Sephora

The reason behind less online sales of make-up products is that it is almost impossible to infer if the lip color will suit you by only seeing the color in an online catalog. Sephora understood the challenge and partnered with ModiFace to create an AR experience app called Virtual Artist App. Using their device’s camera, users could see how the make-up products would look on their faces. Also, their AR technology enabled users to see how their faces would look after weeks of applying a skincare product, a feature that users couldn’t get in retail stores. Sephora’s use of AR technology proved to be of value to the users and increased the sales of the company. Users also started sharing their AR experiences on Sephora’s app online.

AMC Theatres

AMC Theatres figured that audience is highly curious about the trailers of upcoming movies when they are at the theatres. AMC Theatres used AR technology to make their AMC application, which lets the user scan a poster and receive information like cast list and release date. It lets you watch the trailer of the movie on YouTube or a Google review of the movie. The audience can immediately pre-book the tickets for the movie as well from the AMC mobile application.

AMC Theatres’ AR-focused mobile application provided a lot of convenience to the users and enriched the customers’ experience.

AR will make it possible for physical products to be interacted with, online. By simply pointing their phone at a product, users will scan it and retrieve related data such as manufacturer, origin, price comparison and shipping information, and the entire story behind that particular product. This will make use of a technology known as blockchain technology. Let’s find out more about it.