I recently attended CONEXPO, the construction industry trade show held every three years. In my conversations with multiple marketing leaders, the big question was:
“How do I get better insights from our data?”
They want these insights in order to drive their marketing strategy and their company’s growth. The problem is too much data in too many places. Data silos are everywhere. Existing data analysis left a lot on the table —unseen and wasted.
Fortunately, there’s an answer to this dilemma. It’s an AI-enabled technology called Knowledge Graphs. A Knowledge Graph is a way of organizing information by creating connections between different concepts and entities.
Think of it like a spider web, where each node represents a piece of information, and the lines between the nodes represent the relationships between them.
For example, if we created a Knowledge Graph about animals, we might have a dog and a cat, and the relationship between them “IS BIGGER THAN.” We could also connect the "dog" node to other nodes that represent things like "breeds," "behavior," or "diet," and each of those nodes could be connected to other nodes as well.
The goal of a Knowledge Graph is to create a comprehensive and structured database of information that’s easily queried and analyzed. By organizing information this way, you can gain a better understanding of the relationships between different concepts and discover new insights that might not be apparent from looking at individual pieces of data.
But in most companies, not all relevant information is accessible because it’s siloed. Knowledge Graphs can connect the silos and provide actionable insights.
How can B2B marketing leaders leverage Knowledge Graphs?
A B2B marketing leader could benefit from using Knowledge Graphs to determine marketing strategy in these three ways.
Optimize Marketing Campaigns: Knowledge Graphs can help marketing leaders gain a better understanding of their target audience and their behavior. By connecting data from different sources such as social media, web analytics, CRM systems, and marketing automation tools, Knowledge Graphs can provide a more complete picture of the customer journey. This can help marketing leaders identify key touchpoints and interactions that drive customer engagement. This information can be used to optimize marketing campaigns and content.
Identify new opportunities for growth and expansion: By analyzing the relationships between different entities such as customers, products, and markets, a Knowledge Graph can reveal new market segments or product requirements. This can help marketing leaders develop new marketing strategies or product/service offerings that better align with customer needs and preferences.
Real-time insights into marketing performance: By integrating data from different sources such as ad platforms, website traffic, and social media engagement, a Knowledge Graph can provide a real-time view of marketing performance and ROI. This can help marketing leaders make data-driven decisions about where to allocate marketing resources, which channels to prioritize, and which campaigns are delivering the most value.
How is this better than what we’re already doing?
Currently, most data analysis is performed using SQL (Structured Query Language). SQL is a programming language for managing and manipulating relational databases — a proven storage solution for structured data.
A SQL query is a request for information from a database. SQL and Knowledge Graphs are both powerful tools for organizing and querying data, but they approach the task in different ways.
SQL is a database management system that relies on a relational model, where data is organized into tables with predefined relationships between them. To query the data, you need to write SQL queries that specify the table, columns, and conditions you want to retrieve.
While SQL is efficient at handling large datasets, it can be complex to work with and requires advanced knowledge of the data schema and query language. Many marketing leaders have told me it takes too long to get data analysis reports from analysts because of this complexity.
On the other hand, a Knowledge Graph is a more flexible data model that allows you to represent data as interconnected nodes and edges. Each node represents an entity, such as a person, place, or thing, while edges represent the relationships between them.
Knowledge Graphs are designed to capture the complexity and diversity of real-world data, and they can handle unstructured and heterogeneous data sources. They also produce insights faster than SQL-based queries.
One of the main advantages of Knowledge Graphs over SQL is their ability to capture context and meaning. A Knowledge Graph can represent not just the data itself but also the relationships between entities.
For example, a Knowledge Graph can show the relationships between a person, their job, their skills, and their education, allowing you to gain a deeper understanding of the data and make more informed decisions. This added insight helps drive better marketing strategies and execution.
To sum it up
In terms of gaining actionable insights, Knowledge Graphs provide a more intuitive and visual way to explore data. You can use graph visualization tools to explore the relationships between entities and identify patterns and trends that may be hidden in traditional tabular data.
Knowledge Graphs also support more advanced analytical techniques, such as machine learning and natural language processing. As a marketing leader, this can help you uncover insights and generate predictions based on your data.
While SQL is a powerful tool for managing and querying structured data, Knowledge Graphs offer a more flexible and intuitive approach for gaining actionable insights into complex and heterogeneous data sources such as web data, IoT, social media, multimedia, and legacy systems.
Using Knowledge Graphs, a B2B marketing leader can gain a deeper understanding of their target audience, identify new growth opportunities, and make more informed decisions about marketing strategy and resource allocation.
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