The role of analytics tools in creative media industries

We’re at a really interesting place with creative media industries right now; increased dynamism, growing competition and ever-dwindling consumer attention spans are starting to pose considerable challenges to businesses. Certain creative media industries have found themselves to be in quite a bit of trouble in fact. The long held belief regarding creative media industries is that they are hit-driven, fueled by star-power and spontaneity. This is perhaps due to the inherently dynamic nature and uncertain demands of the market. A few decades prior, businesses acting within the industry were prone to taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, putting content personalisation and consumer targeting on the backseat.

The digital landscape has challenged this notion however, presenting businesses with the necessary tools and methods to analyze user behaviour and subsequently predict their demands with reasonable accuracy. So, what does this mean for creative media industries and what role do analytics tools play in it?

User insight collection and data trail analysis

Online platforms, and the methods of interaction they provide to users form an endless quantity of data just waiting to be tapped into, and that’s exactly what analytics tools do. Algorithms for example, process this data, filter through it and classify it. Based on this, algorithms are able to draw reasonable conclusions about consumers and their behaviour patterns. Creative media industries can take advantage of these data trails to build profiles about their target audiences, allowing them to negate a certain degree of uncertainty by predicting future consumer behaviour.

Personalised marketing for creative media industries

User attraction and retention is at the core of any business, and it carries even more weight within creative media industries. A majority of users now look for fast and convenient online experiences, further increasing the difficulty of retaining users. As such it is essential to provide high-quality content and experiences routinely; ones which are preferably tailored to each user’s preferences. This is where personalised marketing algorithms can act as a godsend for businesses.

Personalised marketing algorithms can analyse user data trails and personalise what they see based on the conclusions they draw. They are able to differentiate between new and old users, and might perform cross channel tracking of both familiar and unfamiliar users. Alongside displaying personalised content and offers, this data can be used to promote content among groups that may prove to be the most engaging and influential.

Creative media industries should be aware of customer sentiment

Data analysis tools like SAS enable creative media industries to understand the sentiment behind what users post about them online. This allows businesses to broadly place user posts into categories such as positive, negative and neutral, though it doesn’t just stop there. Tools like SAS are able to further classify what evoked a certain sentiment from the user, such as brand or product characteristics. This by itself has many applications, but for creative media industries the main draw is being able to identify what consumers are responding to, what they are engaging with and what they are rejecting. Based on this data, businesses working within the creative media industry can optimise their content, ridding themselves of that inherent uncertainty with each new piece of content.

The potential for better targeting with analytics tools

Effective targeting leads to greater profit maximisation, and data analytics tools are capable of offering businesses just that. Social media sites, in particular, exchange a massive amount of data in real-time, all of which can be processed and utilised with the right tools in place. The mobile platform also provides a similar opportunity, as its popularity has skyrocketed owing to ease of use. Analysing all this data is crucial for businesses to profile their consumers and deliver more personalised content to them. The targeted, personalised content approach has proven to be a far more effective approach than relying on generalised content that appeals to a mass audience.

Overall, creative media industries are getting more saturated and competitive by the day, and understanding your consumer base is the key to standing out from the pack. Data analytics tools play an integral role in this process, providing business with the means to gather a wealth of information from an ever expanding pool of resources. While these businesses once operated on hunches and at times hinged on overnight success stories, it’s becoming apparent now that creative media industries need to embrace a machine-led, data-focused system or risk getting left by the wayside to be surpassed by their smarter and more data-savvy counterparts.