Many businesses, marketers and agencies are out there looking for high-quality data to improve their business and operations in order to serve their customers better. Having relevant and adequate consumer data is essential for digital marketing so much so that many companies are out there willing to buy such data.
When a business collects consumer data, it runs various analyses on it which helps it optimize its sales funnel. Many companies are willing to outsource critically processed consumer data and if you think you have something to offer them, you may very well monetize your data.
Apart from that, you can obviously optimize your own business and marketing with the help of your data and extract some monetary gains out of it as it gives better understanding of available opportunities, consumers, trends, etc.
Without further ado, let’s talk about-
Ways through which you can commercialize your data
1. Vest your sales force
Before getting into how your data can be useful to others and how you can earn by selling it, let’s first talk about how you can monetize your data. Apparently, the primary objective of businesses behind collecting data is to have a better understanding of their target audience, understand trends, opportunities, consumer behaviour, etc. Smart companies aggregate and organize their consumer data and feed it to their sales force so that they can better understand their customer and make tailor made product presentations, provide better customer assistance and so on.
2. Market and advertise based on data
It’s a given that consumer data is crucial for marketers to base their marketing and advertising strategies on. While this sounds very obvious (and in fact it should since the whole point of consumer data collection is so), many business organizations fail to make efficient use of the data available. Merely aggregating consumer data is not enough. It is important to efficiently arrange, organize it in the way that is relevant to your business and marketing goals to make the most out of it and to optimize conversion. If yours is a small or medium business and you don’t have a particular unit dedicated to marketing, there are many competent digital marketing agencies in India from which you can outsource digital marketing services. They will take your data and monetize it for you by optimizing your company’s digital marketing which will eventually improve your buyers conversion rate.
3. Trade data B2B in your industry
Now this does not mean that you should trade your data with your competitors but you can sell it to your suppliers, vendors, sales-partners etc who’d find this data just as useful. Moreover, it will help both the parties coordinate better with each other when they share the same data, same goals.
4. Trade data B2B outside your industry
You might wonder how your data can be useful to players outside but there might be a number of individuals and organizations outside your industry that might be seeking insights into your industry. To monetize your data through this medium, you should actively explore innovative joint opportunities and seek out for such players.
5. Sell data to customers
Yes, you can sell your data to your customers as well. This does not mean that you offer them the data you have in exchange for money. The idea is to enrich your data by aggregating, organizing and processing your data in such a manner that it becomes valuable and insightful for customers. For example, if your business provides SEO services, you can sell your data as a product by structuring it in the form of a report, index or study that gives valuable insights into the online market and by bundling it along with your company’s existing services to increase the price of the bundle. Businessmen actively look for such insights and would definitely pay for it.
In short
Commercializing your data is a real thing now and many smart companies like Netflix, Amazon, Capital One, Miniclip etc. are moving in this direction. There are various ways of monetizing your data from using it to improve your business operations in order to optimize sales to selling your data through B2B channels. However, there are a few important things that need to be kept in mind that when you trade your data B2B or try to monetize it in any way, you must take care of consumer’s privacy who have entrusted their information with you.
Violating consumer’s privacy is not only unethical, it can also land you into legal troubles thus further tarnishing your company’s reputation. If you’re not sure how to utilize your data, you can always leave it to skilled experts to monetize it for you by applying it to optimize your sales funnel, digital marketing and advertising etc.
