To be a small business, it can be a daunting task to grow especially with bigger players in the market using big data and implementing Internet of Things (IoT). But what does this mean for smaller businesses? How can they survive and what must they do to survive in an increasingly digitized world?
In this article I will be looking at different trends in the Big Data and IoT age and will pick out what smaller businesses can do to take advantage of the opportunities that IoT and Big Data brings.
- Invest in SEO and SEA
With the rapid increase in technology, wearable technology is becoming increasingly popular. What this means for small businesses, is that organic searches on google or any other search engine will only show minimal results on smart watches and other wearable technology. This means that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Advertising (SEA) is becoming more and more important in digital marketing to get your company’s search result on top of other competitors as they will only be able to view the top searches on their wearable technology before losing their attention span.
What this means for smaller companies is that it is of paramount importance that your marketers know about SEO and how to navigate it. Thus, small businesses can choose to send marketers for courses that teach marketers SEO and SEA or hire marketers that already know SEO and SEA.
2. Time to target the Gen Xers and the Boomer Generation
Gen Xers and boomers have been left behind from a marketing Point of View due to all the bigger companies targeting the Millennials. However, due to the rapid advancement of technology, Gen X and the boomer generation may not be able to keep up. There are reports by Pewresearch indicating that technology might be too complicated to fix and that the unconnected individuals may be disenfranchised. This means that there is an opportunity to target Gen X and boomers that may feel that way and businesses can find a way to cater to those needs.
Businesses that lack in the capability to target Millienials through digital means can change their marketing strategy to target those that are not so technology savvy like gen X and Baby boomers instead. It may also work to their favor as Gen X and Baby Boomers have the most spending power due to working for most of their adult lives.
3. Use free Big data available for the public
In these days everyone is leaving a digital footprint. Though there is a lot of unstructured big data, however there is a lot of ways for smaller businesses to harvest these information for free. One way is using google’s publically accessible big data tools such as Google trends (where you find out what people are searching for on google) and also Google public data (Where you can find out information about statistics if it is publically available).
Also another free site that you can go to is Gapminder where you can find data and statistics about Economy, Education, nutrition and so on for many different countries.
Since marketers and companies can use these statistics for free, they small businesses can easily use these information to figure out trends and analyse what is the best direction to take their business in or what kind of niches they can exploit so that other competitors cannot take advantage of them.
Overall, there are many ways that small businesses can take advantage of the IoT and Big Data. I’ve have just given 3 trends that I foresee are likely to arise due to the development of technology and what small businesses (or large businesses for that matter) can do to exploit these opportunities and threats.
What do you think about IoT and Big Data? How has it helped you and how do you think it will help businesses? COMMENT BELOW!
Marketing in the Digital Age 
Hey Marvin
I think IoT and Big Data is very useful for larger companies and industries to gather market data on their target audience and to use such data to improve their products and services. However, the question here is how can smaller companies with supposedly fewer resources utilise IoT and Big Data? Thus you came up with 3 solutions to answer your question.
Yes, I do agree that investing in SEO and SEA is a good idea. By getting your company’s search results on top of other competitors as they can only view the top searches on their wearable technology. It thus gives your company more views and engagement as compared to competitors.
However, while I feel that targeting the Gen Xers and the Boomer Generation is a good idea, you should not miss out the Gen Y’s and Gen Z’s as they consume the most internet among all the generations. Just my two cents!
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Hey Bryan! Thank you for your comment again! I agree that we should not miss out on the Gen Y and Gen Z but I do feel that with most companies targeting them, the neglected open market are Gen X! Besides that, they are also usually the decision-makers of the family and the one with the highest spending power of all the generations! So I feel it would be good if smaller companies can target them! But once again yes I do agree with your point! God bless!
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Hi Marvin. I feel that IOT and big data are pretty scary actually, looking at shows like black mirror shows me how actually lives that are so affected by IOT shows me that it’s actually pretty difficult to not be affected by these things in the future. What do you feel about the potential ramifications of it?
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Hi Vincent! Thanks for your comments again! Yes IOT can be scary with how much information they have on us. I watched black mirror as well and have the same sentiments. I guess what we can do is rely on government actions like PDPA to protect us from these corporate giants.
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Great article once again! I honestly did not know that there was Big Data available for the public! This is so helpful for businesses that need it but don’t have the resources to compete with big companies! Great job! Excellent post!
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Hi Henry! Yes, Big Data is available for companies to use! However, we also have to note that only marketers that know how to use it will take full advantage of it while other companies will only use it minimally. The knowledge is free but the wisdom is always lacking in some companies, therefore companies should hire more competent marketers to take full use of the information given to them!
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Hi Marvin. First off, I noticed that you changed your front page theme! Good effort to make the site more user friendly and pleasant to look at.
Regarding your post, I feel that Gen Z has the greatest potential in using IOT and big data so should we not be marketing to them?
Once again very insightful post!
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Hi Esther! Thank you so much! I put in quite a lot of effort into redesigning the home page and adding a menu as well! Thank you for noticing!
Yes, Gen z has the greatest potential in using IOT and big data, however, tons of companies are already targeting Gen z therefore, I propose smaller companies use the opportunity to target a big market segment that has been neglected.
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