Understanding how SQL streamlines the data retrieval process

When a customer goes online to search for a product and you as the business want to find out what the most popular searches are, how do you find out? The "old-fashioned" way, is to get a bunch of excel sheets together with sales over the last few months or over certain product categories, and trying to make sense of the organized chaos that is Microsoft Excel. At times, Excel can make things frustrating, complicated, and time consuming when trying to analyze data. Luckily with the ability of SQL, we have found a way to streamline and organize data in a much better way.

So what is SQL?

Structured Query Language (SQL) is basically how a business communicates with a database. Vault Analytics did a good job at describing the importance of SQL and how it differentiates from Microsoft Excel and the older ways of conducting analytics. So what SQL does is help narrow down whatever it is you are searching for and what data you wish to retrieve. You can be much more specific when using SQL and can make changes much easier than you would in Excel. 

As a marketer, I wondered how SQL can be beneficial to us? The article in Vault Analytics described where it puts you as a marketer going out into the business world:

If you are a marketer that knows how to use SQL, you are probably part of 1% of marketers who do, and with that ability you will be able to do analysis and make discoveries no one else in your organization can.

 When thinking about it like this, it made me realize that this is another amazing tool to having going out into the real world and can give you that much more of a competitive edge as a marketer. Even if you just have a base knowledge of what SQL does and what it looks like when coded, you can become that much more valuable for the company that you are working for.

Code Academy to the Rescue!: 

To get a better understanding of how SQL really works, we went through a 3 hour lesson on Code Academy to see the ins and outs of what SQL can do for you.                                                                                                                                         

I started out doing the "Learn SQL" block which went over the basic command functions that show how a company can easily organize data in an efficient way that gives them the exact information that they need. The second section focused more on finding specific dates, numbers, and string functions, while the third tutorial focused more on revenue and finding the most valuable data for a business. In the last section I went through, the tutorial used an example for a restaurant that was trying to find out which item on their menu was generating the least amount of sales. Through coding and specific search settings, I was able to narrow it down to the kale smoothie by comparing the amount sold in each section of food and drink offerings and then more specifically searching within smoothies and finding the lowest performing product. This is just one of the many examples that they gave throughout the tutorials, and each one was very insightful by allowing you to see how you can use SQL in various types of businesses. 

At times, the tutorials did get a little frustrating, especially in the second and third videos where you had longer strings of code to deal with. The smallest of details in these long, complicated strings of code can lead to errors. I spent a good 20 minutes staring at the screen after an error message kept popping up and I got frustrated and thought all hope was lost. After showing my roommate, who has no prior knowledge of coding or SQL, my computer screen and he immediately noticed I had a space where i meant to put an underscore...and just like that it was fixed! Little things like an underscore or a space can get annoying and make you want to give up, but once you figure it out you start to realize the importance of detail and how paying attention to the little things can go a long way.

Who uses SQL?

As SQL has become more of a crucial part of the digital marketers success, it has in turn become crucial for any business to have success in marketing and sales. Some more than others have definitely taken full advantage of the usefulness of SQL, and have been seeing success from it since its implementation. Amazon has probably been one of the most successful users of SQL and have integrated it into their Amazon Web Services. If you look at their signup page, you will notice that the SQL server is powered by Microsoft so you have the ability to lease the software through Amazon and use its abilities for your business. Basically any webpage where you have to search for more specific results uses SQL to determine the best way to filter the information. 

Wrap-up:

So after successfully conquering the Code Academy tutorials, I feel as though I have a much better understanding of how SQL can be beneficial and how us as marketers can use it as a tool to put us ahead in the business world. Even though it can be frustrating, it's worth it to buckle down because it will get easier with practice and is very rewarding once you get a hang of it. And even though I was hating on Microsoft Excel earlier, its still an important tool for analyzing specific, and limited data situations, but if you want something more specific from a huge database of information, you should use SQL.

If you are interested in learning more about SQL there are a lot of resources out there. W3schools.com offers detailed classes and quizzes, Code Academy offers free tutorials that offer a great hands on experience, and even udemy.com offers classes at reasonable prices to help expand your knowledge even farther.