Most businesses today deal with terabytes or even petabytes of data, shaking the foundations of built technology infrastructures and digital marketing strategies. This apparent accumulation of large data volumes has then given birth to a loosely defined term in the information world: big data.

In turn, this advent continues to revolutionize internet marketing, as business teams are becoming attracted to consumer data available online—web searches, credit card payments, mobile use habits, and the like. But the question is: are we ready for it?
According to a study by Millward Brown Digital, a group specializing in digital branding, only 14% of surveyed marketers were confident that they can make wise use of the data available to them. This percentage is a 25-point drop from the 39% who expressed positive responses last year.

To help you take full possession of its advantages and guide your information-driven marketing journey, below are five of the most urgent concerns when it comes to big data.

1. Identifying and analyzing the right data

Gathering relevant data for your brand s digital marketing strategy is just the first step. Even more important is navigating through these forests of data to identify the most relevant and valuable ones while discarding others. Foregoing this may compromise data analysis, which is another big challenge altogether. In data analytics, there’s a danger to be overwhelmed with algorithm and statistics, making analysts prone to inaccurate conclusions.

 

2. Finding the best talent pool

In the data-driven workplace, the challenge for managers is to find people who can do these two things: 1) understand and cope with the tech landscape and 2) make sense of essential data. In the face of this human resource challenge, it s no wonder that there’s a large base of untapped marketing potential in most organizations today.

 

3. Strengthening data security

Nowadays, everyone is after valuable information. But how do you protect your data for the good of your business and your customers? Failing to shield your data from malicious security threats can cost you not only revenues and customers but also your reputation.

 

4. Collaborating across work functions

Leveraging big data means merging a variety of fields: information technology, engineering, communication, finance, and even social psychology. It takes careful planning to be able to build a team and craft a platform that makes multi-area management efficient.

 

5. Coping with today s fast-changing tech landscape

Tech innovations keep mushrooming rapidly, IT policies evolve continuously, and data companies keep bringing something new to the table. These entail corresponding changes regarding how internet marketing is done. Business teams must therefore be as dynamic as the tech landscape to be able to maximize the use of tools and data.

Huge chunks of information, if leveraged to the best possible advantage, can revolutionize digital marketing. It can challenge existing practices and give rise to new ones, but like all good things, it comes with tremendous challenges. It may take years of error-and-trial resolutions, but until we find the best one, we cannot yet unleash our greatest potential as a new breed of tech-driven professionals.