
Continue reading UPDATE: What’s the buzz around the big game on 2/5?
Continue reading UPDATE: What’s the buzz around the big game on 2/5?
Guest post by Steve Archut
Hosting a party for the Big game? Here’s what to feed your guests
The game this weekend has practically become holiday in America with many people hosting parties and epic amounts of junk food consumed. Roughly 28,000,000 pounds (13,000,000 kg) of chips, 1.25 billion chicken wings, and 8,000,000 pounds (3,600,000 kg) of guacamole are consumed during the game. The question remains for those hosting a party, what do I serve my guests?
Using Watson Analytics for Social Media, I wanted to see what people were saying about some of the most popular dishes out there. In under 10 minutes I was able to identify what to serve and maybe more importantly what NOT to serve.
We can see that wings, hoagies(subs & heroes to those not from Philadelphia), and pizza are dominating the conversation.
The overwhelming majority of people prefer to order their food instead of opting for home cooking. This is great since it will free up time to watch the pre-game festivities!
Watson Analytics for Social Media also gives me the ability to quickly view the sentiment around the different dishes:
Party trays have a surprisingly amount of negative sentiment. (What did party trays ever do?) Maybe I will avoid that this year.
When it comes to the Super Bowl, everyone is in on the food action. Though men and women tend to have different opinions on what to serve. This will really help plan what I should serve based on who is coming to the party.
In just a few minutes, Watson Analytics for Social Media gave me an in depth look at what people are saying about popular dishes for the big game this Sunday and I was able to glean insights previously unavailable to me. As for me, I’ll be serving meatball sandwiches this Sunday.
These are all questions we can explore!
These are all questions we can explore!
In my post last week, I shared that many people are intimidated by analytics. This week I will share a practical application of analytics to demonstrate that there is no need to “fear” analytics and in fact, with a few simple steps, they can have a tremendous impact on organizations.
The following scenario is based on a true story (names, industry have been changed):
Jay, Fly First’s CMO, has decided that deepening the knowledge of it’s customers is the best way to get the airline back on track. Jay knows that traditional data sets from internal systems such as purchase history and customer service inquiries would only tell him part of the story. He made it his mission to deepen his understanding customers by expanding data collection, ensuring all analog and manual touch points become an opportunity to understand Fly First’s customers better. To accomplish this his team digitized menu selections by implementing electronic menu selections on seat back touch screens, allowed only credit cards for in-flight purchases, and using data capture capability conducted frequent digital surveys that covered topics like service, preferences, and how they pass time during flight delays.
I studied German at university for both my undergrad and graduate degrees. Numbers and data were not exactly my strong suit. In fact, I was a bit of a “numberphobe” or “arithmophobe” for many years. I am willing to bet many of my fellow marketeers are also not thrilled with having to become more of a scientist vs. artist when it comes to managing marketing activities. Many marketers have never developed (and frankly never been asked to) develop the analytic skills required to be successful in today’s data driven marketing world.
Well guess what folks? If you are a marketer and have not started developing analytic skills yet…you are behind the curve and may find yourself left in the dust. Now, with that said, if this German major can “get it”, I am pretty convinced anyone can! Here is how:
Overall needed to become more analytical can be daunting, especially for those who may not have an analytics background. With that said, there are many resources available to you. If a German major can lead marketing analytics initiatives, can it really be that complicated or hard to do?
If not, they should! And there is a means to truly understand customers…
Social media analytics seems to be all the rage and for some, it is the Holy Grail to understanding customers’ needs, wants, desires, and opinions. While much has been done in the realm of customer analytics, this has largely been focused on historical analysis of data behind the firewall. This only tells one piece of the story.
Social media analytics enables organizations to add that missing link in customer analytics – sentiment. What do people really think or feel about a product or service. Yes, you can infer this information from historical purchase history or marketing/sales interaction history – But isn’t is just downright more accurate when you read something like: “This is the most USELESS product ever!” or “I cannot believe that anyone would pay money for this piece of crap!!!” or “Hey, airline X! A $10 voucher is not going to cut it this time!!!”
For you marketers out there, social media analytics can be a powerful ally as you determine how to position your offering, to whom and whether or not your messaging is resonating. Social media analytics enables you to determine:
Now, many organizations, including marketing, make the mistake of looking at social media analytics as a stand alone set of information. Those who see social media as a complementary data source will get a better picture of their customers and prospects. Bringing Social Media analytics into the mix is part of a solid customer analytics strategy.
Tactically speaking, marketers need to act on the information gleaned from social media. Navel gazing will get you nowhere fast…….
Here are a few examples of companies responding to a social media crisis:
Big Data is a reality. Big data is also big hype. So where is the real value in the Big Data hype?
Like it or not, Big Data is a reality marketing and other organizations are facing today and will face well into the future. According to the IBM Global Technology outlook, it is estimated that data growth will explode exponentially from 3,000 exabytes today to 9,000 exabytes by 2015. (I had to look up the word exabyte!) So what do we marketers do about incorporating this new source of data? Where are the best use cases?
We are faced with a challenge – Big Data alone does not help us. We need ways to get value out of the data. The challenge is that traditional analytic tools are not exactly suited to take advantage of Big Data. Analytics vendors are developing offerings in an attempt to keep up with the ever changing needs. With that said, we need to be thinking about where it fits in.
For me, the best use case is squarely in the camp of customer analytics. I love my data from the marketing automation system. It tells me a great deal about the patterns and behaviors my customers and prospects display. But it only gives me a piece of the puzzle.
As I think about my customer marketing initiatives, I need to be able to prevent customer defection (commonly known as “churn”). By leveraging unstructured data (call center notes, customer interactions, survey responses…) with internal structured data to detect & proactively mitigate factors that lead to defection, I can better design marketing programs to avoid that “aha moment” when customers realize they no longer want to do business with us versus defecting to a competitor. Conversely, applying the same approach can help marketers identify the “aha moment” which leads to improved customer loyalty
So, is Big Data hype or is it really something we marketers can benefit from? If marketing organizations do several things, I believe it will improve marketing’s ability reach the target audience with more appropriate offers.
Connect with me to continue this discussion: @BrendanRGrady