How Would the Marketing Industry Use Business Intelligence
A company in marketing is one that deals with an endless barrage of data and information. This is certainly too much for a human brain to analyze and compartmentalize on its own. In order to actually learn from this data properly and implement these lessons, the marketing industry uses tools such as business intelligence.
Business intelligence, or BI, can help pull important data from marketing campaigns and turn it into more palatable, bite-sized pieces.
Read on to learn more about business intelligence and how it can be used to its highest potential within the marketing sector.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence, or BI, as it is shortened, is a tool that can be used for different companies in a variety of industries, and is meant to assist a company in making intelligent decisions. It is used in conjunction with the other applications and software that a company already has in its arsenal.
Together, they collect data in many different categories and then make it make sense for the employees and team members at the company.
This data is condensed into easy-to-understand, bite-sized pieces of information, and from there, it is easier to make informed and strategic decisions for the business.
As can be assumed, BI is specifically used in sectors where there are high volumes of data being collected. One such industry is the marketing industry, of course, which we will go over further below.
The amount of data can be overwhelming, so business intelligence software sorts through it and only pulls out relevant data when running reports or analytics. Essentially, business intelligence does the hard work for us!
Also Read – How Would the Technology Industry Use BI
What Is the Marketing Industry?
Now, when we refer to the marketing industry, what exactly do we mean? The simplest way to describe it is, of course, that this industry handles marketing for different companies. Yes, that is true, but it is more complex than that. Marketing is a label for the process of researching, exploring, and creating value– and then delivering this value– to meet the needs of a target market in relation to services or products.
It is also the process of communicating the offerings of a company to the consumers so that a company can make the sales that it needs to survive. Some of the tasks included in marketing are identifying a target market and designing attractive packaging.
In order to target the correct audience in the correct way, marketers need to analyze data to make smart decisions.
These decisions can include the copy and language that they use in an ad, or what visuals potential clients respond best to.
Benefits of Business Intelligence for the Marketing Industry
There are many ways that business intelligence can be a valuable tool in different industries, especially those that collect a lot of data.
Take a look below to learn more about the various benefits that business intelligence brings to those working in the marketing industry.
Define Key Demographics
Demographics and target audiences are very important when it comes to marketing. Luckily, business intelligence software can help to define these for marketing companies and the campaigns that they are working on.
BI can use the data collected to narrow down demographics until they identify the right audience for a product or service.
Business intelligence can collect data from many different channels or applications that a company is already working with, and can then use this data to provide a more complete overview of the company’s clients.
Improve Quality and Speed of Reporting
In order to create a successful marketing campaign, a marketing company needs to collect as much data as possible. For this reason, it is important to have BI software– these especially come in handy in sectors that handle large data sets every day.
The marketing sector typically collects these data sets from different sources, too. However, if data is collected from different sources, it may not be uniform, which can naturally be confusing. The business intelligence software is programmed so that it is able to unify data streams so that the data made sense and could work together.
Otherwise, it is not going to be helpful! By having the business intelligence software do this particular job, saves a lot of time and eliminates human errors that could have come up as well.
Generate Actionable Insights
Of course, one of the main benefits of business intelligence software for marketing is that it can generate reports that break down the company’s data into more actionable insights and steps that the teams can then take.
This is a benefit of BI no matter what industry it is being used in! BI is able to ask the right questions about the data that is being collected, and then the data can be sorted accordingly.
Otherwise, the data may be misapplied and therefore cause misunderstandings of the data– this is something that would more commonly happen if a person was handling the data sorting and reporting, rather than the software.
Improve Operational Efficiencies
In any business, there are likely going to be some operational efficiencies that, if not identified, can lead to errors or lost manpower and money. Business intelligence software can help to identify these operational efficiencies so that time and money can be saved– and then put towards other, more important tasks or investments.
This is often done by setting benchmarks for performance metrics so that goals can be worked towards and made more clear to teams.
That way, everyone knows what the focus is. In addition, the reporting and analytics of BI software can be used to pinpoint issues within a company so that they can be addressed.
How Is Business Intelligence Used In the Marketing Industry?
As we discussed above, business intelligence has special benefits that make it a great investment for marketing firms or marketing companies– however, there are special ways that it can be utilized in different industries such as the marketing industry as well.
How it is used and its benefits are not necessarily the exact same– now we are talking about implementation.
Read on to learn more about how business intelligence software can be applied in the marketing sector, and how it is commonly used in this industry.
Forming a Personalized Sales Strategy
One of the main ways that business intelligence is used in the marketing sector is to develop better and more personalized marketing strategies, based on the data that they have been able to collect over time, as well as the reports that are run based on this data.
The software has access to all sorts of data, including sales figures, budget plans, and more of the company.
Plus, there is also plenty of customer data that can be used so that marketing campaigns and sales strategies are developed that will appeal to them and their needs and preferences. This can help to increase conversion and the success of a particular sales strategy.
As we are inundated these days with commercials, advertising, and all forms of marketing, it is more important than ever to maximize all sales opportunities and be innovative to stay competitive.
Predictive Analytics
When reports are run on the data that a marketing company collects, then predictive analytics can also come into play. The marketing industry can use predictive analytics to reveal any potential future trends, and can then strategize to work toward these.
Predictive analytics support the approach of the sales team and can help to inform this approach. This helps them to then increase their sales and revenue if they utilize the information properly. Predictive analytics can be used to not only decide what sorts of messaging will resonate most with customers but also to determine what types of products or services to sell to which customers.
Even better, predictive analytics can be used in real-time. Often, they are able to provide almost real-time updates for BI software users so that they can refine their approach or strategy on the fly.
They can also decide to automate certain decisions or execution with this software.
Storing and Accessing Customer Data
Last, but certainly not least, business intelligence software can be used to store customer data, and then can make this data easy to access when it is needed later on. This is great, because, as mentioned previously, the marketing sector intakes a huge amount of data every day.
With business intelligence software, companies are able to integrate all of the data and operations into one central location. This helps to stay organized and on top of things. Business intelligence software combines data mining, data analysis, and data visualization.
This help to provide a truly comprehensive view of customers to make more informed decisions.
Marketing BI can help to analyze the behaviour of customers, as well as market trends, which then helps them to improve marketing channels and the effectiveness of their delivery and supply chain– and their marketing approaches, too, of course!
In Conclusion
Utilizing business intelligence software is a crucial piece of the puzzle for the marketing industry. As this is one of many different sectors that collect large data sets, it is necessary to have a tool to help keep all of this data organized– and then pull from it for later reports, if need be.
From there, marketing teams are able to analyze data and make smarter decisions during marketing campaigns for their clients, or for themselves!
It is an investment that truly is key to success within the marketing industry, especially due to all of the benefits we went over previously in this article.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is business intelligence used in marketing?
Business intelligence tools can be used in the marketing industry– or the marketing team of a business– to organize and analyze data that is collected by an organization.
It provides the team with valuable insights they need in order to make smart, strategic decisions.
For instance, BI can help identify trends in customer behaviour, what kind of approaches they respond well to– and which approaches they do not respond to–, and insights on their competitors, too.
How can business intelligence benefit your sales and marketing?
Sales and marketing are crucial to a business because a business without sales is not much of a business at all! After all, a business that cannot make sales cannot support itself. Implementing business intelligence, or BI, can be a great way to bolster your sales and marketing initiatives.
It can do so by helping to improve customer retention rates, enhance the levels of customer satisfaction, and increase the revenues from marketing campaigns by upselling and cross-selling.
BI tools can help to improve marketing approach and strategy, based on past marketing campaigns and the data they have collected.
Which industry uses business intelligence?
A better question here would be: “which industry does not use business intelligence?”! This is because business intelligence is a tool that can be used across a variety of industries and can be beneficial to them in many different ways.
However, BI tools are especially useful to larger businesses or the tech industry– sectors that collect very high levels of information on a daily. A few industries that rely heavily on business intelligence include logistics, healthcare, energy, and manufacturing.
Business intelligence for marketing and finance or banking are other sectors can be very beneficial.
What are marketing models in business intelligence?
Marketing models is a term that refers to a tool which is used by advertisers or businesses– this tool helps to make clear the strength of a business, as well as its earning potential.
Marketing models work to review overall strategies and parameters that are involved with advertising a company and its goods or services.
There are three main marketing strategies that may be observed, and these are the strategy of cost domination, the differentiation strategy, and the focus strategy. Each of these works on a different factor to help establish a competitive advantage for a company.
