What Marketers can learn from Han Solo and his obsession for Spatial Accuracy
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Han Solo enlightened Luke Skywalker on the importance of having access to accurate location data while traveling through the alternate dimension, aka, hyperspace.
In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the Captain of the Millennium Falcon quipped, “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, kid! Without precise calculations, we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”
Objects in hyperspace travel faster than the speed of light, so it is easy to think of hyperspace as a phenomenon disconnected from the real universe. However, every point in hyperspace is associated with an actual place and moment in realspace. And the gravitational signature of a real space object (stars, planets, asteroids, etc.) has a very tangible – and dangerous – impact on the objects in hyperspace.
In fact, collisions with these ‘mass shadows’ are usually catastrophic for a starship. Which is why Han was matter-of-fact in his conversation with an impatient Luke that the Millennium Falcon would not make the jump to hyperspace until the navigation computer had churned out the exact coordinates for the journey.
If you really think about it, having access to precise location data is just as relevant to our world as it was in the Star Wars galaxy. According to market research company Forrester, quality and transparency of location data are top concerns for marketers in North America. 34% of the marketers Forrester contacted were convinced that they are working with an inaccurate location database.
Fraudulent or incomplete address data can be as catastrophic for business as coming into contact with a ‘mass shadow’. Here are a few real-life examples of what can go wrong with inaccurate location data:
- You invest a lot of time and money into designing direct mailing campaigns and getting top-quality print material, but do not receive the anticipated response because the address database you are using has incomplete or invalidated addresses.
- You plan a new store location based on the inputs provided by your location database, but end up getting cannibalized because the nearby competitor business listings points of interest (POI) data you were using was outdated.
- You want to create a self-servicing automation service for your website to increase customer satisfaction, but because of the inaccurate postal code data being used by the system, your potential clients now believe you do not provide service in their area.
Missed opportunities, inefficient site planning, increased costs, and reduced insights are only some of the ways through which incomplete, inaccurate, and out-of-date address data can hurt your business.
But just like Han could rely on the navi computer to put the starship on the correct path, you can trust DMTI Spatial to provide you the best-quality address data for Canada. DMTI’s award-winning Location Hub® is powered by the largest nationally sourced Canadian geospatial database, making it the most up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate location data in the market.
The platform not only provides a unique identifier for each address, but it also enriches the database with related content like name and phone number, demographics, firmographics, flood data, environmental risk information, land use information, etc. – ensuring unparalleled business insights. You can test drive Location Hub today by clicking here.
Already own location data? Check how clean it is by signing up for a free Address Quality Assessment. Because in the end, all we want is that the force of powerful location data be with you!
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