The term “big data” has been thrown around more and more over the past few years. And while big data has been prophesized to be the next fundamental marketing tool, very little about what it actually is has made its way into public knowledge. Many even define the term incorrectly, allowing it to reach little more than the status of a buzzword mentioned blithely at the business roundtable.

“Yes, of course we should use big data! …What is it again?”

The reason why big data remains such a foreign concept can be attributed to the fact that sophisticated CRM programs have allowed businesses to operate just fine without having a proper understanding of what big data actually is.

However, with the rise of new marketing challenges, business owners are now being forced to research and learn the truth about big data. We discuss the concept here to help clear up any confusion.

What is Big Data?

“Big data” refers to the massive amount of data that businesses collect from digital and real-world sources. It also ends up recorded online, which allows for companies like Google to utilize it in their moves to expand.

Big data is also used in everything from social networking to mobile applications and electronic logs.

Interestingly, it’s the size of big data that has made it such an advantageous tool for business. The bigness of big data allows for companies to review every aspect of their business, to cross-reference metrics, and to come to working conclusions with respect to which components have the largest effects on their target demographics.

The 3 V’s of Big Data

While the size of big data in and of itself is impressive, there’s more to it than just bigness. Volume, velocity, and variety are three other reasons why big data is so useful.

These three words actually move big data from being just a technological concept to being something that has a real world application. The 3 V’s allow for marketing campaigns to have a more individual value, and they cut down on the fuzziness of big data’s definition.

How All of This Affects Marketing Campaigns

Big data and CRM software have been used to understand what motivates and appeals to consumers. While individual instances of CRM software range within the capacity of what they can interpret, their fundamental purpose has indeed been to help businesses of all sizes have more productive sales people, marketing teams, and managers.

Additionally, CRM software has been an integral component of market research, as it’s helped these individuals to understand the most important undercurrents of consumer motivation.

The Cost of Success

However, strategies that employ big data and CRM software have always had one major point of concern: the cost.

Cost is such a big issue here because there are so many metrics that can constitute big data, which means that there are just as many algorithms and subroutines required to interpret it. Now, couple this with the need to compute marketing cost efficiency.

For the most part, however, the cost of big data analysis is often outweighed by the numerous benefits that big data brings to the table. In a highly competitive business world, big data can enable businesses to become leaner and meaner with their marketing campaigns.

Big data: It may seem cumbersome, or even vague, but when analyzed correctly it’s worth it to your marketing efforts.