Don't be afraid of the big scary data monster

Consumer insight is a marketer's best friend, but imagine having the answers to any question about your customers' behaviour or objectives at your fingertips -- even if you hadn't thought to ask them first! It may sound a bit far-fetched but this is not science fiction. Those marketers brave enough to capture every click and key stroke -- and then delve into the mass of data swilling around their web channel -- are the ones who can react most quickly and effectively to customer behaviour. Revenue can then be maximised through passing the data directly to business processes and marketing applications, allowing for improved customer retention. Due warning
When you consider that U.K. consumers spent more than £26.5 billion online in the first half of 2008, a jump of 38 per cent from the last year, it becomes obvious that analysing data, and lots of it, is crucial to improve the online experience and acquire then retain customers. Looking at the effect simply of loyalty cards (like the Tesco Clubcard in terms of its ability to collect customer data and inform targeted marketing and product merchandising strategies), consider how much more information can be gathered from the online channel. Loyalty cards only know about what your customers actually purchased, whereas from the online channel you can see what they looked at and searched for but did NOT buy (aspirational data). How much more powerful is that? This data provides your customers' intentions, motivations and aspirations -- all classified by demographic and/or source. Information revolution
No marketing department has extra-sensory perception, which means that only by being in possession of accurate detailed, structured data are they ever going to understand what their consumers will want, whether that is in the hours or even years ahead. Moreover, this extra-sensory perception problem extends to not knowing precisely what data they need. This becomes a monster of major proportions when you discover that you will need to add tags to your website to acquire the data -- an inaccurate and time-consuming process. And if you don't know what you need to know and where on the site to get it from, then how do you know where to put the tags? However, the latest development in data acquisition systems harvests data about absolutely everything and anything a person does, sees, or experiences when he or she visits your website, all without a single tag. You have access -- whenever you need it -- to every element of their interaction with you. It is only with the complete picture of their activity -- rather than second-guessed elements, that marketers can hope to use the insight to boost conversion rates, deliver better experiences, optimise product mix, increase loyalty, lift share of wallet and reduce churn. The saint is in the detail
This is all about ensuring nothing is wasted. Often the most innocuous piece of behaviour can tell a brand something insightful about a consumer's needs. It might appear to be a seemingly random click on a particular image, but when this action is combined with other data, a more tailored offer can be developed and issued. One financial services comparison site claimed it doubled the effectiveness of its advertising spend by attaching behavioural data to its campaign. An online book store saw a six-fold increase in conversion rates once it had a better understanding of how visitors were using its search functions. Then there was an online travel company, who used data that showed Christmas offers should be started a month earlier than originally thought -- to catch the more prepared consumers -- and ultimately proved this with an eminently powerful and profitable campaign. So what IS a lot of data?
There is no doubt that we are talking about a lot of data -- terabytes of data for a large retailer, but that is no reason to shy away. The technology is working to help you. Today, I see that Maplin is offering terabyte disk drives for under 100 pounds, and single modern blade servers can handle and structure all the information you will collect, so marketers who are worried they will have to then analyse this mountain of data themselves can rest easy. The software available means that as well as receiving standard reports from suppliers, the data analysis can be fed directly back into the marketing team's own computer systems and applications to drive marketing programs, personalisation, business intelligence and optimisiation. Spot the gaps
Online marketing often suffers from a lack of relevant data. Without the insight afforded by detailed and comprehensive records of interactions, a company will be permanently unaware of its potential. By capturing every last piece of data, a company can not only solve usability issues, but more importantly, can interact proactively with its visitors -- its image shapers and brand influencers. For example, analysis into a building society's website noticed their mortgage calculator was unsurprisingly the most popular area of the site. However, deeper analysis showed that a proportion of customers used it up to 15 times a day, even five days in a row. These customers, and all their details, were prime to be passed onto the call centre (in real-time), so that they could be called immediately to discuss mortgage options -- a targeted, immediate and effective CRM approach. Providing answers
The days when marketers and IT experts barely acknowledged each other are over because both departments must appreciate that in a digital world they need each other.  Marketers should understand they cannot ignore potentially valuable data and the technical teams must realise there is an end purpose to the current and historic data they are being asked to process. It is true that in the past some marketers have been scared of data or undervalued it because it was presented to them in a language they did not understand. Presented in anonymous and generalised graphs, it did not give them the insight into individuals that they really needed. But now, companies that have been brave enough to collect data on all their customers and drill down into it have seen their knowledge of their customer base virtually explode overnight. They have discovered what motivates people to visit their website, what their likes and dislikes are when they arrive, how they navigate their way around and why they choose the paths through the site that they do. The potential results speak for themselves. Go on -- be brave! Malcolm Duckett is VP of marketing and operations at Speed-Trap.