Essential to understand customer needs and anticipate market trends, customer knowledge has become a major challenge for companies, and more particularly for the marketing department. In order to exploit the potential of this precious information, data exploration has become an essential tool.
What is data exploration?
Data exploration, also known as data mining, refers to a set of technologies and techniques used to analyse large volumes of data. It consists of identifying relevant information from raw data, with the objective of supporting decision-making.
Data mining tools use artificial intelligence, machine learning and complex algorithms to extract in-depth knowledge from Big Data. Specifically, they make it possible to examine multiple data sources and identify the relationships that link them, in order to establish the most relevant and efficient strategy possible.
In particular, the valuable information obtained from data exploration plays a crucial role in the field of marketing, as it can help the company refine its customer knowledge.
What are the challenges of customer knowledge?
Big Data and customer knowledge are closely linked. Therefore, data exploration is essential to enable companies to respond perfectly to their customers’ needs.
Better customer segmentation
Companies are experiencing an increasing influx of data, which is becoming more and more diversified. Although this represents an asset for enriching customer knowledge, it is also a real challenge: the data must be sorted, and the customers segmented to be able to exploit the full potential of this data.
Here, the use of a Business Intelligence tool is essential to efficiently process the information, bring out its true value and thus support the decision-making process.
A presence on all communication channels
The rise of digital technologies has led to a proliferation of customer communication channels: websites and social media are now an integral part of the customer experience. Moreover, this wide variety of channels brings an even greater volume of customer data, as long as you are involved on all fronts.
In fact, in order to respond effectively to the needs of its customers, the company must be able to collect and analyse the data available on each communication channel. Thus, a Data Intelligence solution is essential to face these new challenges and guarantee a good level of customer satisfaction.
Improving predictive analysis
In marketing, customer knowledge is also a valuable tool for predicting future market trends. Predictive analysis, which is notably based on artificial intelligence, makes it possible to create reliable models to anticipate customer needs.
However, predictive analysis requires a particularly large and, above all, completely reliable database: hence the importance of using a business intelligence solution. Moreover, it is part of a long-term logic aimed at developing a product and service offering that meets the needs of customers in the more or less distant future.
How does Big Data make it possible to actively contribute to customer knowledge?
Improved data interpretation
Data exploration allows, first, to interpret all the data collected on the different channels: customer relationship management (CRM) software, social media, websites, apps…
Data mining is based on powerful algorithms capable of mapping customer behaviour. By combining statistics and artificial intelligence, it makes it possible to read between the lines and extract really relevant information, even from a large volume of scattered data, the goal being to enrich customer knowledge.
Establishing performance indicators
Thanks to data exploration, the company is able to exploit all the data collected to improve its customer knowledge. In particular, it can keep track of the different actions carried out by its customers on the Internet, whether it is visiting a website, buying from an e-commerce store, making a comment or an online review…
But Data Mining helps to go even further and exploit the full potential of this precious data. It is indeed possible to better interpret data and link them together to generate key performance indicators (KPI). These are the foundation of any well-thought-out marketing strategy.
Improved customer targeting
Understanding your market and your customer base inside and out is key to establishing an effective marketing strategy. Data mining makes it possible to target customers with greater precision by looking at various factors: price and product positioning, current economic context, competitive intensity, demographics, etc.
Thanks to the information obtained, the company can propose a suitable product or service proposal for each type of customer, but also set up targeted promotional actions to increase its sales. In addition, data helps to reconcile the marketing and sales departments for an even more efficient targeting.
Customer knowledge is crucial to implementing an effective marketing strategy, capable of meeting both current and future customer needs (thanks to predictive analysis). Data exploration, with the help of a Business Intelligence tool, is therefore essential to sustainably improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
