Monetize the Data or Watch Your Business Burn

Don’t Bring a Turtle to a Horse Race – Boost Your Business With Data

Just in case we need to make this explicit, here it is: Data is valuable.

That’s an understatement, actually. Data is profoundly valuable. For marketers everywhere, data has become the trump card that makes the difference between moderate business success and becoming a megacorporation. Regardless of your personal business goals, there’s no question that the importance of data is not decreasing, and nor is it stabilizing…

No, the importance of data in business is increasing—dramatically.

Big data use is accelerating at such an exponential rate that it’s tough to track. And when something this big transforms the business world, it becomes a matter of competition. You can be competitive (and use data) or resign yourself to mediocrity among corporate titans. And it’s no surprise that data has revolutionized business – it improves the experience of the customer, locates new customers, reduces costs, and generally saves everyone time.

Businesses don’t have to guess about their demographics, and customers don’t have to guess whether a product is right for them. Data management and analytics platforms are on the rise, and if you’re not using one, you’re lagging behind. 

But while data allows you to streamline your business model, it can also be directly sold for profit. After all, you know what they say about money: You’ve got to spend it to make it. Likewise, it’s increasingly the case that you need data to get data. That is, you need data to profit from good demo targeting, and as you track your marketing/sales process, that in itself is valuable data that you can sell to other parties. 

So without further ado, here are 3 ways to take that data and—poof—turn it into profit. Just like that.

1. Locate Sources of Relevant Data

What data do you have available? If you have none, where can you get it? If you’ve been operating a business, chances are that you have data on your customer base. In any case, once you have that data, ask yourself what steps you need to take to make it valuable or improve its value. How could someone use this data to turn a profit? What marketing advantages could be gained from it? This will work toward figuring out who might want your data and where it could be sold.

2. Sort and Sift Your Data into Useful Categories

Raw data that’s scrambled all over the screen isn’t much use to anyone. Your data will have to be organized and readable. At that, it should be sorted into categories by potential use. Some data may be useful for businesses targeting teens, and some might be useful for targeting Washingtonians in general.  The general steps here consist of the following:

1. Unify
2. Connect
3. Attribute
4. Structure
5. Validate 

Organization is the exciting step in which your data starts to take on the look of a real product—something another party will actually be hungry to get their hands on! Remember, practicality is the key. What can this data do for a given buyer? What concrete advantages will it confer? 

A data management platform can dramatically simplify this whole process for you, so don’t assume you have to manually knock this thing out in Google Sheets or something. Data management platforms allow you to pour all your info into the same place and basically carry out sorting/analysis functions that would take a person many hours to do manually. 

3. Analyze With Software First, Then Follow With Creativity

Sorted data is great, but you’ve got the really important work ahead of you. Now that it’s organized, it has to be analyzed. Software can do much of this for you, but a human perspective is still needed to draw useful conclusions that inform the data’s biggest selling points. For example, software can determine how many people of X age live in Y location and the rate at which they tend to make certain buying decisions. 

But what the software can’t tell you is why these demos behave the way they do. 

It can’t show you what kind of sales could be bolstered by the raw numbers you’re seeing on screen. That part’s all on you! You’ll have to rack your brain for insight to figure out which organizations would find your data useful and how to pitch it to them. The marketing process never ends, but if you love it as much as we do, well, then you’re in business.