Most marketers today are already struggling to keep up with the massive amounts of data collected on their customers through websites, CRM, email, and mobile apps. The problem will only become worse as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to spread throughout people’s lives, bringing with it a flood of new data as billions of new gadgets and sensors are deployed across the world.
IDC projects that by 2025, the average connected individual will interact with a connected device 4,800 times per day, in its report, “The Digitization of the World From Edge to Core“. While there are hurdles for marketers in managing the increased volumes of data generated by IoT, there is also much to gain. In some industries, like energy and healthcare, IoT provides marketers with the first direct information they have ever received from their customers, while in others, it enriches existing customer profiles. IoT provides unprecedented volumes of data and opens new ways to communicate with customers based on real-time insights into their preferences and wants across the board.
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IoT data can be used to generate useful insights
Here are four potential recommendations and benefits for how marketers can use IoT data to establish stronger ties with customers:
Data-driven customer insights
By analyzing IoT data, marketers can acquire a better knowledge of how their consumers behave, uncover product issues or opportunities, and pinpoint places where more customer support is required. Companies can personalize their approach based on the information gathered, such as proposing a complementary product or service to an existing customer, or providing an incentive to a potential new consumer. Companies should convert raw IoT data streams into meaningful events through parsing, classification, and labeling in order to acquire these insights.
To understand more, combine data sources
Marketers can acquire knowledge that isn’t accessible in isolation by merging IoT data with data from other, generally digital sources. When a smart thermostat measurement is matched to outside temperatures, it may be possible to identify consumers who require new insulation or windows. Companies can gain unprecedented insights into their customers by connecting massive amounts of IoT data.
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Connect with customers via gadgets
Many IoT devices allow businesses to communicate with customers directly. This can include suggestions for improving a product’s performance or upgrading options. However, knowing what knowledge to share and when to provide it, is critical. Connecting data from IoT devices to a marketing system that can integrate it with other data, apply suitable selection rules, and draw from a library of approved content can help marketers obtain this insight.
Employ IoT to broaden the reach
IoT data can help reveal customer requirements or interests, which can help businesses communicate more effectively through other channels. Only if IoT data is merged with other customer data in a unified database and then shared with other marketing platforms will this be achievable. This allows the data to be used in other ways, such as email or social media marketing.
Begin to provide new value to customers
Customer data management faces additional issues as a result of IoT. The volumes are larger, the structures are more complex, and the data streams are frequently continuous. Companies who can unlock the insights contained in this data, on the other hand, can gain new ways to engage and communicate with customers. This makes the extra effort of capturing IoT data and converting it into formats that marketers can use worthwhile.
Companies should adapt to the IoT era in order to maximize their opportunity and create new value for customers. This entails devising a strategy for dealing with large volumes of streaming data, performing complex parsing and event extraction, storing data in accessible formats, and connecting with other marketing systems for analysis and execution.
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