Waste not, want not — Big Marketing Plans with Leftover Factory Seconds Data.
Dredging up unique, shareable content to keep your audience engaged is a constant struggle for many companies and non-profits. Using factory seconds can solve your content crisis and boost your uniqueness factor.
What are Factory Seconds? Factory Seconds is a retail term used to describe imperfect products that cannot be sold at full price to the primary buyer, so a second buyer’s stream is created to sell these imperfect items at a lower cost through a secondary channel (think Marshall’s, Ross, or any other discount store).
What are Factory Seconds Data? Taking the idea of Factory Seconds and applying it to data means any data that you collect as a by-product of doing business. You can then repurpose this data and develop it into very unique, highly shareable stories that can improve your reach and ROI. For example, let’s look at an ice cream shop. As a by-product of data collected in sales receipts for the ice cream shop you know what ice cream flavors are popular for what seasons and on special holidays. Yes, you can use this information to make better business decisions (Factory First Data), however, you can also turn this data into Factory Seconds by creating interesting content for marketing your ice cream shop. You can do this by answering questions like: is there anything interesting about people’s choices? Is there a spike in particular flavors or patterns on particular days that you can relate to weather, politics, or something else funny or interesting? Turn this into your unique content, you will be known for the compelling stories that you develop around your own Factory Seconds Data!
Where to find your factory seconds – In order to use these nuggets of awesome content, you will need to start a catalog of the various types of data you collect, knowingly and unknowingly, and see what other types of data you have access to (facebook page demographics, other social media that you are followed on, almanacs, weather). Go beyond the demographics of your audience to see what trends are occurring. Here is a list of some places to start:
- Patient or Client Database, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), etc.
- Geographical Location Trends
- Sales Receipts and Invoices
- Events and Tradeshows in your Industry
- Product Sales Trends
- Services Sales Trends
Become the scientist of your Industry. Start to hypothesize some occurrences that you witness and have always had a hunch about and see if you have the data to possibly answer some of these questions and then, SHARE IT! People want to know trends, if they are already in the realm of wanting to know your business they will eat this information up and they will appreciate your special insight into your small or huge piece of the world and what that means to them. Make your information relatable, always relate it back to your audience in some way.
Example: Holistic Healthcare. Here is an industry-specific example of where you can start to harvest your Factory Seconds Data:
Your Patient Database. Whoah, whoah now. I am absolutely not implying that you break any kind of Privacy Laws. There are many ways to “de-identify” your patient list prior to any kind of data analysis. Here’s a link to the HIPPA Compliant De-identify Process before you get started.
Okay, now that you feel safe again, after you de-identify your patient database, sift through some measurements and see if you can find trends or any story in your data set based on local geography, a specific demographic, a particular ailment, specific treatments, etc. Once you have listed out the various stories your data can tell, develop that data into content (articles, stories, infographics, etc.) You can share this information with local or national news sources and develop yourself as a true Industry Leader.
The holistic healthcare industry is ripe for these types of Factory Seconds. Mainstream healthcare has so many widely shared studies, and research facilities validating health processes and procedures, but what about holistic practitioners? There is a huge lack of evidence-based information available to the droves of people who wish to learn more about natural paths to health and healing.
Factory Seconds are our favorite types of content to develop! You never know what kind of amazingly unique stories you will discover from your data. Inspired to geek out now? Click the link below to start the process of developing your Factory Seconds Data into content. Or, you can always enlist our help!
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