In recent years marketers have been striving to find new and more efficient ways to collect and analyze data. Data Mining allows marketers to look at large quantities of data in order to find patterns in customer behaviour. When using data mining marketers may ask the following questions: what time of year are most of our products being purchased? What is the most dominant age group? By unlocking the answers to these questions marketers are able to serve the customer for efficiently. When the customer is served efficiently marketers are able to cut costs.
Here is a little background information. So what is Data Mining? Data mining is the process of acquiring and storing large amounts of data which is then analyzed. By analyzing the data marketers are able spot trends in their costumers’ purchases. There are two ways in which data can be collected: offline and on-line. Offline refers to credit card sales, smart card sales, or any real time sale in which data can be collected. Whereas on-line refers to consumers purchasing or entering information on our website.
I believe that in order to use data mining effectively, marketers must be able to analyze the data effectively. Recent technology allows us to acquire a lot of important data; the real challenge is in analyzing that data and making correction decisions. By analyzing the data we can spot trends in our consumers’ behaviours. By focusing on these behaviours we as marketers are able to serve the customer better. Data mining has many other different uses; it can even be used to fight crime. Finding the right software can be a very difficult and costly process. It takes a very sophisticated product to be able to analyze the amount of information one company can receive. SPSS is a very popular software that is used by many companies, I also have had the opportunity to use this software. By choosing the right software, a company can accurately predict their consumers’ trends. Data mining has an umlimited potential and every markter must take advantage of its opportunities.
