Topic 5 - Developing & Understanding Digital Patterns

Topic #5 of Digital Disruption: Developing & Understanding Digital Patterns

[This is Topic #5 of my upcoming business book on Digital Disruption for CMOs, Business Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Digital Marketers who are tired of online mediocrity, and are ready to disrupt their business online. This is the raw, unedited content as I write the book, for each topic; it’s not in order either, like a finished book will be - just the core topics that I am picking away at. If you’re seeing this for the first time, please scroll down towards the bottom, to see how all these posts fit together.]

Patterns - Why Finding What You Need To Know Is More Important Than What You Know

“People Use Statistics as a Drunk Uses a Lamppost — For Support Rather Than Illumination” - Andrew Lang

“People Use Statistics as a Drunk Uses a Lamppost — For Support Rather Than Illumination” - Andrew Lang

“Big Data Is A Big Pain In The Brain”

If you haven’t been listening, “Big Data” is supposedly going to save humanity, the world, the internet, and even your business.

Yet, it starts out be being incredibly confusing, even for an aerospace engineer (myself included). There is simply too much information - of all types, which continues to confuse and compromise the ability for businesses to make accurate decisions. We’ve missed the point, with big data, in my mind.

Definition of Big Data: “extremely large data sets that may be analysed computationally”

Yes, data is extremely important it, so don’t get me wrong. This isn’t to knock data, big, small or medium sized. The challenge is the complexity of it all. I’m not sure the last time I checked, but I’m not a computer. And I suspect most businesses leaders are not one either.

I totally get the point, however, and so should you - information is extremely important to make critical decisions surrounding the business and your industry and markets. And yes, it certainly can be “computed”. But ask yourself this question - what would you tell “big data” to “compute”? What would you do with this answer? It is more important to better be able to know what to do with that information, and extract the information and use it, than it is to actually “telling” you the information. In other words, the information is pointless if you are not sure how it affects you nor what it can actually be used for.

Disruption is no different. Being able to implement Patterns at the business level is where you will able to disrupt and transform. You must be able to recognise them, and then implement them into a system for you. This is why they are one of the 5 pillars of disruption. Without Patterns, you cannot “see” what is happening to everything around you, what your customer is doing, what your audience is intending to do.

Fundamentally it comes down to “seeing” what our audience is doing, and how you can create engagement points or interaction points that allow you to 

Patterns are the “next big step”, or more technically in line with this book, the disruption step for so-called big data. If you can see the patterns, then you’re using your data effectively, which is a step beyond every business out there. This is part of your plan for disruption.

This is where patterns come in; we need to create the understanding and awareness of what the information is actually telling us, so that we can then act upon it accordingly. No it does not necessarily make it easier - just that it is something that you can actually do with the information. There are patterns in everything that we see, everything that we do, and more importantly, in everything that your customer does. We just need to be able to see these patterns, to recognise these patters, to learn the real story behind the data.

Information or data, for the sake of data is completely meaningless. It is what you extract, what you see, that actually helps you make these decisions about your business and marketing.

Now, we’ve heard it many times before: “Big Data” is set to change the world, to disrupt the way that we do business, under every circumstance. Why, you’ve probably asked? Well, its because you have the amazing power of generations of computing power in your hand, right? 

Honestly, that is completely irrelevant, as again, no matter how much data you have - big or small, it does not matter if you don’t know what to do with it.

So many businesses have set up the industry favourite - Google Analytics, yet most do not actually use it, or stop using it, or think that they ‘should’ be using it. Of course, Google Analytics is not necessarily “big” data - but it is data that can be used, to help understand the patterns that you are seeing.

Personally, it should be called Big Information - Not BIG DATA. Why? Well, because it is something that businesses can better deal with. Information can be taken and utilised, while ‘data’ gives most of us a headache, after which we simply push to the side and do something else less stressful.

The problem with Big Data is just that - it is too big. Everyone talks about it, but no one really knows what to do with it. Yes, of course there are the experts that will analysis the data and analytics, but it still comes down to taking that information and making it useful for a business to better be able to use it.

Maybe it is a bit grandiose, as most businesses probably couldn’t care less about “big data”; what do we really want? We want to be able to see what the data actually means, without blowing a circuit breaker in our brains.

Whether you are a multinational CMO, CDO, a solopreneur, marketing guru, or everything in between, everything that happens can now be tracked, recorded, reviewed, optimised and then maximised. You need to be able to paint this picture to provide you with insights and details that will help you become more in tune with the needs, wants, desires, emotions of your audience.

While it is also about the hard data about behaviours and trends, it is also about the softer side of “what to do next”. There is no real simple answer, other than to take the main sets of information, and see what they are telling you.

Let’s simplify the “promise” of Big Data, into what is really important, and how we can actually utilise it for business and marketing. Let’s get smarter about big data and what it can do for us. Then, let’s see how we can apply it to what we do in our own businesses.

Big data is a tool, however, and it can be used to understand these patterns. They can’t be used in isolation. You can use all of the different sources of data that are available to you, like marketing tools, Facebook, advertising platforms, Google Analytics, Generic analytics, etc. They each have their own element that needs to be looked at.

The main idea? Don’t get so bogged down in trying to find the data, that you don’t actually do anything with it. If you can’t “see the forest through the trees”, then you’ve gone too far - patterns are the big pictures, that show your the entire forests, how everything is growing, where the hills and valleys and rocks are, within “your” forest. Use the patterns to help you build a map of what it looks like, where people go within your digital ecosystem, how they are better off after interacting with you and your business. 

Simple tools like Google Analytics can work, but they need to be able to show you the main things. Marketing tools, like SEMRush are also able to help pain the picture of what you need to do. It also shows you a picture of what is happening across your ecosystem.

The biggest mistake? Don’t get caught up in the data, itself. Too much data will not tell you a story - it will simply confuse. Too many businesses have started with simple tools, but don’t use them, as they get lost in the data itself. Instead of focussing on meaningless measurements of traffic or visitors, look at how you can create goals across all your tools, which will then help to develop a specific process that your audience goes through. Look at sales, look at a process, look at steps along the way. 

Think of how a painter paints a masterpiece, or even the inside of your house. If you are looking too close, you won’t see the greatness, you won’t see what it really looks like. Don’t get so compelled that you miss the work of art.

At the end of the day, it is simply about understanding the digital fingerprints. What people do, say, act, respond, “touch” that can help you better understand what goes on from day to day.

Patterns are used to define the data and details around your platform, and more important around your audience and customers. It allows you to move from qualification to quantification, without skipping a beat. It allows you to create additional touch points that affect your audience. And yes, patterns can be used to truly define and understand your perfect customer - avatar or persona.

Facebook and other advertising platforms are getting much better at this, but again, they are somewhat incomplete at this point. They are many facts of big data, that we don’t necessarily know how to see it, nor what to do with it if we did actually see it.

What important? You need to extract meaningful insights to improve your customer experience.

Pulling Patterns together to work for disruptors. 

Here are some fundamental aspects that need to be considered in order to see and “pull” the patterns together, and to be able to identify and understand what they mean for you and your business.

How can I see these patterns?

1. Have you identified specific behaviours of your customer; you audience? 
2. Have you created a customer avatar or persona? What do they “look” like?
3. What is attracting your current audience to your current digital ecosystem?
4. What is happening with your competitors? How are they engaging
5. What marketing tools are you using that help you see the picture of the behaviours of your customers and audience? How often do you look at the data?
6. Use advertising to actually measure results
7. Set up goals or a process that allows your audience to proceed
8. Test all of your assumptions along the way. See what works and what doesn’t work.
9. Map out all of your channels, all of your current touchpoint.

What is your customer and audience telling you? What are the NOT telling you?

What will you use to better be able to see the patterns in and around your digital ecosystem? __________

What types of patterns are there?

1. Identify your specific patterns that you see in your business, across your entire ecosystem
2. How does your social media influence your audience? What do they respond to? What do they typically miss?
3. How do they respond to marketing?
4. How do they respond to sales?
5. What is your true and real customer personas?
6. What do they do throughout your platform and what you want them to do

7. Where are your value points? 

What To Do With These Patterns?

1. Create specific groups that people can identify with your patterns.
2. Write down these patterns. Be descriptive so that anyone can identify with them. Give them a name and identifying features. How will other people recognise them?
3. Understand that they will change over time.
4. What do these fingerprints “look” like?
5. Simplify the data - what is really important for the success of your audience? Not some generic metric that has no bearing on your audience
6. Can you identify a process, or the starting points of a process?
7. How can you map out your value, and how you deliver it, along the way?

What's the Future of Your Patterns?

Finally, Patterns need to move you beyond the Big Data sets of simple things like demographic and geographics. While they provide a wealth of information, and were quite useful in the growing marketing of the mind in the 60s, they also are limited in their scope today, and limited in the true patterns that you will be able to differentiate about your audience. We need to expand this in order to be fully effective, into the realm of behaviours and psychographics - the true motivators in the digital age. 

Most businesses ‘start’ with demographics and geographics, which are essential factual pieces of data, that will produce a ‘factual’ reference point.

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Religion
• Education
• Income
• Home-owner
• Socio-economic status
• Geographic factors

We’ve been ‘stuck’ with this “small” data for over 50 years in marketing, and it doesn’t seem to be ending. When you ask someone about “who is your customer?”, they will unequivocally and quickly ramble of some of the above physical characteristics. You ‘should’ be able to easily identify this for your audience. 

However, what if you could actually move inside the mind of your audience, to their attitudes and personality through behaviours? This is the next stage in building patterns that properly fully identify your audience, which then allows you to design more specific communication directly with them.

What are some of the psychographic and attitudinal references? [Reference provided below]

• Advertising Resonance
• Consumer Data
• Consumer Confidence in the economy and in business
• Lifestyle Data
• Buying Styles
• Civic/political engagement segments
• Mobile data opinions

What if we could further look inside the mind of your audience? This moves into more of the personal and behavioural thinking of people. Here is what else will help you formulate some additional patterns in what your audience is thinking.

• Psychology - openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
• Persuasion - reciprocity, scarcity, authority, fear, social proof

Can you identify these characteristics in your audience? 

Have we entered the personality and behaviours era? Absolutely. Defining the patterns that surround the personality and behaviours of your audience provides the true insights into what really connects with your audience.

How are you able to further define the personality and psychographic analysis of your audience. Through what is called the OCEAN assessment. Created by the University of Cambridge,it is a simple quiz to help you understand this, at least for yourself, which can then possible be provided to your audience (perhaps you could get your audience to try this out and see where it leads you (and them), in developing the patterns of your audience.

https://applymagicsauce.com/

https://discovermyprofile.com/personality.html

What can you actually do with this information, and where is the ‘sweet spot’ of business? According to Mr. Alexander Nix, Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Analytica. [youtube video link], this can readily be applied to your marketing through these three factors:

1. Behavioural science
2. Data analytics
3. Addressable Ad tech

Understanding and harnessing the power of all three assists in creating the patterns that surround your business and more importantly your audience.

The businesses that are able to understand these patterns and the true personality of their audience are the ones who are demonstrating business growth, placing them on the path towards disruption. The ones that don’t? Yes, stuck in the “Mad Men” era of creative, mass-marketing, mass-communication “advertising”. There is nothing new about that.

Psychographics, while around for awhile, offer a way of understanding more of our human behaviours, and how this is a critical "grouping" of each one of us, that can then of course be marketed to. We're going to see a lot more of this in the coming years, as we better understand our behaviours online (which are similar to offline behaviours, but online at least some can be measured). We do of course need to be careful how this is used, but it will actually reduce significantly the amount of spam that we receive, as marketing gets smarter and is able to identify those people who are actually actively showing behaviours that define that they are looking for 'you' and your offerings. So, you won't see a lot of the garbage, as it will simply become a waste of money for those who are shotgun marketing, as the results simply won't happen. Smart businesses will be able to identify this, and present intuitively to their audience the 'why'. 

List of psychographics - (NIX): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc

Psychographics Quiz https://applymagicsauce.com/

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Topic 5 - Video

Watch The Video on Topic 5 - Digital Patterns

What Is This “Book Writing Challenge”?

Here’s my “challenge”, as I write this book on disrupting your business online. I’m planning on writing 30,000+ words in 30 days - so yes, average about 1000 words per day. This is a pretty big task, as some research and referencing also needs to happen at the same time.

Everyday that I write pieces of the book, I’m going to post it here onto Facebook Notes, as well as onto Linkedin Publisher. There are no sacred cows, no leprechauns, magicians, not even any unicorns here.

The good thing is that I have a mind map that I’ve used to outline the main topics of content.The content will be “raw” = no editing; only ideas and concepts. It may not look pretty, either. Editing comes later - I’ll be sharing this as well when the time comes. It won’t even be in order either, as it is impossible to write completely sequentially.

I’ll also try to create a short video that also elaborates on the concepts that I’m writing about, to hopefully fill in some extra gaps, or give me some more writing to do.

You can jump in at any time along the way - no need to follow everything - just that which might interest you and help you in your business journey - see more details below of all of the different topics that I’m putting together.

It’s going to be a living, breathing, thinking book project. I know that most authors work “in secret” not wanting their CrackerJack “unicorn prizes” to be revealed until the end... I’m thinking otherwise :). I’m thinking that by showing you what I’ve got started, and getting feedback and insights along the way from you, we’ll be able produce something of greater significance.

And, who knows - maybe I’ll even have a few other co-authors along the way...?

Most assuredly, I would appreciate your feedback along the way as well. When you decide that you would like to post a comment or send something my way, please consider these 3 questions:

1. Does it make sense? Or am I just spewing gibberish? :)
2. Can I apply it? How can I make it work?
3. What can make it better? Images, Illustrations, Questions...

Thank you for listening, reading, watching or even lurking! :)

See you online!

Doyle Buehler

How To Connect With The Writing Challenge

If you would like updates on this project, please follow me on my social channels, or by signing up at www.disruptors.digital to get more details and links emailed to you.

• Twitter: www.twitter.com/doylebuehler
• Linkedin: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/doylebu...
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doyle.bueh...
• Slideshare: www.slideshare.net/onekanzuru/

Here’s the growing list of topics as part of my challenge:

1. Intro To The Book Challenge: https://www.facebook.com/notes/doyle-buehler/my-new-business-book-writing-adventure-why-im-giving-everything-away/10154832702212356
2. Topic 1 - Digital Velocity: https://www.facebook.com/notes/doyle-buehler/topic-1-digital-velocity-my-new-business-book-writing-adventure/10154839423202356
3. Topic 2 - Digital Purpose - https://www.facebook.com/notes/doyle-buehler/topic-2-digital-purpose-my-new-business-book-writing-adventure/10154839499132356
4. Topic 3 - Digital Experience: https://www.facebook.com/notes/doyle-buehler/topic-3-digital-experience-my-new-book-writing-adventure/10154846598277356
5. Topic 4 - Digital Entrepreneurship https://www.facebook.com/notes/doyle-buehler/topic-4-digital-entrepreneurship-my-new-book-writing-adventure/10154853104252356
6. Topic 5 - Digital Patterns https://bit.ly/2iz8WwT