On the last day of Social Media Week 2020, Nairametrics covered a session on the topic “Beyond Demographics: The Marriage of Data, Insights & Intuition”. The session was put together by Digi Clan, a community of digital marketers helping each other to excel.
Panelists during the session focused on what people need to know about data and its relevance to business decision-making. Panellists also focused on how to make sense of data, the tools for data collection and analysis, as well as the role of intuition in data collection usage.
There were four panellists during the session, all of whom are digital communication specialists. They are Olubayo Adekanmbi, the Chief Transformation Officer at MTN Nigeria, Toyosi Odukoya, the head of Digital Transformation at Coca-Cola West Africa, Mayokun Fadeyibi, the VP, Consumer Business Group at Cars45, and Banke Alawaye, a Digital Transformation Specialist.
Banke defined data for business decision-making as all the necessary information that can help a company to sell its products and services to the customer. Such information can range from customers’ behavioural patterns to the activities of competitors within the market space.
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There are internal and external data, according to Mayokun of Cars45. Business owners should concern themselves with both but focus more on gathering information about the realities inherent in the locality where they intend to do business as well as the customers they are targeting.
The experts also noted that when it comes to data collection, it is important not to just follow the trend. Instead, truly understand your customers, where they are, how they want to be reached, and how you can reach them at their convenience.
Also, concern yourself with the objectives for gathering the data. As a matter of fact, this should be the first thing to do before even gathering your data.
Meanwhile, collating data is not really what is important. The important thing is being able to actually make use of the data with the help of your domain knowledge and some intuition that Toyosi called “inspired brilliance”.
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Now, inasmuch as intuition can be useful in the data gathering and interpretation process, the experts stressed that it is highly necessary to numb one’s biases when using data.
What you need to know
- There is a lot of unpredictability in data. Always bear that in mind in order to avoid errors.
- There are loads of data laying around social media. Carefully mine these data and make good use of them.
- Create a database of data filled with information about your customers which you can always go back to for reference purposes.
- Keep your data in a consistent format in order to be able to interrogate them later.
- Small business owners should ensure that they start gathering data about their customers early on. They don’t need to wait until they can afford all the big data tools. Instead, all they need for starters is their Excel spreadsheet.
- Small businesses should gather data about their competitors in order to learn how the said competitors relate with their customers.