No matter what kind of a business you’re running, you need to perform a thorough marketing analysis. This process will help you find an ideal customer, learn more about competition, products and services that are available on the market and so on.

Implementing a new and effective technology into your management systems has become imperative for any industry. This is why there are so many data mining applications.

Let’s see how your online business can benefit from it!

What is data mining and why should I care?

Mining of data is detection of patterns within large data sets as well as any database.

These data sets represent raw data which can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, various governmental sources, any data library, etc. By processing these web resources we are able to view relationships between data which help us establish patterns and discover quality information.

During this process, you can use several data mining techniques such as classification, clustering, association, etc.

Based on these methods, you are able to access various types of patterns.

Have in mind that different insights can be gained through data analysis. This is why there is no clear winner when it comes to which technique you should use. Each one has a different purpose and based on industry in which you’re operating, some of them will provide better results.

When it comes to practical data mining application for your site, these patterns can be used to make a prediction of the market. They can show us client preferences, product and service trends etc. In that regard they can be used to increase sales and conversion.

Which industries benefit from data mining?

Knowledge obtained from this process can be applied in various areas such as finances, engineering, science, education, medicine etc.

Basically there are no rules as long as there are numerous variables and you require patterns.

Here are some of the areas where mining of data is widely used.

1. Market basket analysis

If a company has anything to do with sales (whether we’re talking about products or services), it can greatly benefit from data mining.

When analyzing market, organizations use so called market basket analysis.

There are a lot of products that are bought in conjunction with other products. For example, consumer that commonly buys beer will also purchase snacks. Data mining allows us to learn more about these consumer habits and establish pattern.

With this information you can better arrange stores and create offers that will stimulate consumer to purchase these two (or more) goods at the same time.

2. Market segmentation

Most companies know who their target customers are.

Reaching those clients is a completely different thing.

The most important marketing policy of any company is being able to find interested individuals and sell them their own products and services.

Data mining allows you to classify individuals and create groups that would be interested in your items. Then, you can modify products according to their needs. Segmentation also saves you a lot of time and money during advertising.

3. Client relationships

There is a good reason why companies nowadays ask you so many questions.

All this text data will be stores in their database for later use.

Acquired information will be important for building relationships with your clients. Just by sending an occasional email or promotional pdf content for download, you can improve relationships and even sell something extra along the way.

However, it can also be used for developing future products and services, to make marketing and advertising plans, etc.

4. Manufacturing

Mining of data has brought a lot of change to manufacturing.

By using various data mining techniques you are able to establish various relationships during production. In other words, you can predict costs, development time and other variables that are important during manufacturing.

This way, you can check in advance whether a project can be profitable or not.

5. Healthcare

Health insurance is one of the most important elements of any governmental system. Besides that, private healthcare is also a cutthroat business where you need to have every advantage possible. This is why data mining has become so important for this field.

By discovering various patterns you are able to predict whether current taxes will be able to cover future healthcare expenditures. But that is only a small part what this process can do.

Through their computer doctors can automate majority of the scheduling process, optimize usage of medical facilities and machines as well as predict daily and monthly number of patients.

Basically, through data mining you can maximize efficiency which is especially important for government-held facilities.

6. Education

Similar to healthcare, education is one of the top priorities of any government.

Through data mining we are able to discover patterns in students’ behavior. To develop various, new learning methods, books and other teaching tools that will be applicable for future generations.

In education this process has a predictive function when it comes to planning required number of specialized schools, number of graduates from every class etc. In that regard, educational system can be optimized to provide for current economic needs.

7. Finance

Areas of economy such as insurance and investment banking are heavily dependent on predictions. Most of it comes to efficiently predicting risks which is the main way of making money.

This is precisely why data mining is such an important part of planning for these institutions.

Through it we are able to notice important trends which can tell us more about potential of a particular stock. Such data can also be used in insurance to predict how much a client should pay based on the chances that an accident will occur.

8. Prevention of criminal

There are many areas where criminal can be prevented (and solved) by using mining of data.

Data mining techniques can be used efficiently during criminal investigations and can provide clues to detectives based on previously found patterns. It is a powerful tool that allows you to track previous activities of a suspect and determine culpability.

By finding relevant data, you can also better manage larger systems. Based on a current crime rate and other factors you can safely predict a future crime rate allowing you to allocate more resources in target area.

Lastly, it can be used for preventing intrusion into informational systems and for improving surveillance.

Conclusion

Practical data mining applications are limitless. There are also various data mining tools you can use to achieve your goals.

Most of industries are based on predictions. Processing large amounts of data has become necessary for running a stable business and creating effective long-term plans.

This is only a short list with some of the field where data mining techniques are common. A lot of other industries use this method on a lesser scale as well.

The main question isn’t whether these industries will start using it on a larger level; the question is when will they start doing it?

Is data mining being used within your industry? How do you feel about it? Share your views in the comment section below!