Several posts in recent days point to the SMB’s need to use data to stay competitive and even win.
In the IBM Five in Five list, a prediction was made that local retail would close the data gap with online retail.
First off, as marketers, the last thing we want to offer an SMB is big or even Big data. Big sounds too big for this audience given all that these business owners have on their to-do lists.
But that’s not to say that obtaining, analyzing, and acting upon data are too much to ask for a small or medium-sized business.
Let’s call this type of data manageable.
I’ve made a marketing career of understanding the customer and acting upon data. It’s about to become much, ummm, bigger for me as my company, Mobivity, looks to close on the proposed acquisition of SmartReceipt, Inc., a marketing solutions company whose software products transform traditional retail transaction receipts for Subway, Baskin-Robbins, Dairy Queen and others into engaging "smart" receipts that feature coupons and special offers for consumers.
It’s our belief that SmartReceipt's printed receipt data yields highly sought-after individual, actionable purchase history which in combination with Mobivity's current SMS and Stampt mobile loyalty app can be monetized and leveraged by SMBs and others who need to make an impact at the individual location.
What that would mean for SMBs is a manageable initiative that results in the crafting of specialized offers, coupons and messages based on actual individual purchasing histories.
Benjy Boxer recently wrote on forbes.com that “although we mostly hear about Amazon and other online retailers stealing market share from local retailers, online commerce still only represents 6% of all commerce in the U.S.”
That makes not the data, but the opportunity, bigger than big.
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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program http://Goo.gl/t3fgW, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
