Getting to the Why

Big Data Marketing: Engage Your Customers More Effectively and Drive Value – Lisa Arthur (Wiley)

Any marketer possessed of common sense will tell you that word of mouth is the most effective way to market. A potential customer of ABC Widgets expresses and interest in purchasing a widget and a family member, friend or trusted co-worker speaks positively about the experience they had with ABC Widgets and before long Mr. Potential customer is walking through your door or visiting your website and making their widget selection/purchase. Short of cloning a bunch of product or service advocates armed with antenna to scope out potential customers seeking your goods, and hone in to deliver your positive message; what is a marketer to do to reach those customers and drive business.

There has been a business section headline making fundamental shift in the way we do business in recent years; that shift has placed the consumer squarely in control of the of the journey from prospect to close. No longer are traditional methods of shouting at customers (advertising) driving business growth. Marketers are on the hunt not only for what works when it comes to effectively communicating to consumers, but also on a journey to discover why it works. It’s about getting to the why.

 

One of the most prominent business page headlines involves the phrase “Big Data.” Every day we are inundated by a firehose of information about who our customers are and what they want. Author Lisa Arthur tries to help marketers make sense of all this information and how to make effective use of it all in Big Data Marketing: Engage Your Customers More Effectively and Drive Value.

Arthur delivers a no nonsense approach to the entire process. If you go into this book looking for a way to justify your marketing strategy, you’re in for a wakeup call. This is about the customer experience being front and center when it comes to your marketing. Think about it; you have effectively researched and developed the product or service offerings for your business; you’ve right priced for the marketplace and then you deliver an awful customer experience. All the marketing, advertising, public relations and community outreach in the world won’t save your business.

This is not a book that delivers secret formulas or hard to understand process improvements. Arthur serves up five practical steps that marketers of every level of the experience scale, can take to drive strategic marketing decisions. In a day and age where the mantra continues to be “do more with less” Big Data Marketing offers up tools to understand what works and why and do things more effectively.