The Data Works, a marketer’s best friend - An innovative application for Marketers to find new market opportunities

We all know that the essence of Marketing is all about the 4 Ps, the right Product, in the right Place, at the right Price, with the right Promotion. But in this fast moving, very fragmented, and diverse market how are you supposed to find the right Place? I know that when I worked in marketing, of all the elements of the marketing mix that we found the hardest that was it. After what I have seen today I believe that, at least for those of us in the UK, there is an answer. The Data Works represents one of the most significant aids to Sales and Marketing that I have seen in a long time. I am adding it to my list of best buys to get us out of the economic bad times!

The engine behind the scenes in The Data Works is QlikView, which, for those of you who may have read these columns before will know, is a tool that we hold in very high regard. What QlikView does is to allow business users to slice and dice data, that is to dig down through data in an intuitive way to discover things of value, and this is achieved without having to pre warn IT that this is how we want the data set up, and having to then be trained to analyse the data. It is simple, it is fast and it is readily understood. But an engine, no matter how good, is only as good as the data fed to it. It is here that The Data Works excels. They take data from the very best sources, and they combine it to create a uniquely powerful data set. The data is coming from such sources as Companies House, Experian, Yell, The Royal Mail, The Office of National Statistics, The National and Property registry etc so it is the data that people are electing to judged by. The end result is a database of over 4 million active businesses spanning the UK, with up to 300 attributes per company. This then is the basis for you to go and find those companies that are most likely to be your ideal trading partners.

To illustrate what line of thought analysis is about suppose you want to find companies in North West London, who have a Turkish background, have a Marketing Director who is a woman, and who trade in confectionary, that is what QlikView allows you to do, and that is what the data assembled by The Data Work supports.

I cannot think of anyone working in the B2B market that does not need this sort of data. The big boys can probably do it for themselves, but for the rest of us there is The Data Works. This is a much needed solution, being delivered using one of the best tools available, with data that is, beyond question, the best there is, with a price that, if I am a judge, is fair, which leaves you wondering just why would anyone in Marketing not want to solve one of their biggest headaches right now? So, my advise is stop guessing, go out and look at The Data Works and go create new markets rather than analysing sub standard data in spreadsheets, in the vain hope you find something that useful, It’s as simple as that, just do it! The Data Works demands to be taken seriously as the Marketing aid of 2012 and beyond.