Data-driven Marketing is in my blood.
In the 70s, my mother got a PhD in marketing and went off to Bell Labs to research how marketing can have the optimal impact on IT expenditures. Forty years later, I wake up every day ecstatic to help marketers tackle real-time marketing intelligence with TrackMaven. The rise of data-driven marketing has meant that as marketers we are finally getting a seat at the executive table, quantifying our impact on the business, and controlling an increasing share of corporate budgets.
However, what people have started to forget is that marketing still requires a human touch. A level of passion. And a soul.
Data-driven marketing is a science that allows us to scale an art, not a science in of itself. Too many marketers turn being “data-driven” into optimizing short-term metrics, leading to short-term results. So how do we balance the need to be data-driven with not losing the passion of marketing?
4 Ways to Keep Your Soul in a Data-Driven Marketing World
1 - Choose your Job Wisely
Your career is the ultimate funnel. You have to decide what opportunities to put in the top and which to apply effort on. The result is your success and professional development.
Talented data-driven marketers often feel that they can tackle any brand and any marketing situation. All I need are systems and data! But what they fall prey to is systematizing mediocrity. The fact that we can scalably grow any marketing program is not an excuse for marketing something that doesn’t carry weight.
As marketers, we are brand-builders and revenue generators. By picking brands that are anything but meaningful, we end up optimizing in the wrong maxima. It’s not just about getting the perfect CTR and CAC, it’s about doing that within a brand or company that means something to the world.
2 - Diverse KPIs: Get some New Acronyms
With intense sets of data at our fingertips, we can optimize our spend unlike ever before. But the acronyms in marketing reports today (CAC, CTR, CPC, LTV, CR) all have a fatal flaw: they are inherently short-term. They don’t account for changing markets, new competitors, new channels, or new consumer preferences that could upend your current marketing programs at any minute.
Strong brands last beyond singular marketing campaigns and current tactics. Nike will never struggle if consumers shift how they consume advertising. The brand has become something that transcends a specific medium or a specific campaign.
As a result, you need to bring long-term tension into your data and reporting. Your goal is not only to build an effective marketing campaign today but to build a brand that can continue to generate top-line growth for the indefinite future. Think about adding KPIs that measure brand awareness and loyalty. Add new metrics to your reports. Our goal in data-driven marketing is to provide an accurate representation of the state of our marketing, not merely use the most convenient metrics.
3 - No Watered Down Marketing - 20/60/20
Strong brands have a point of view. Their goal is not to make everyone mildly positive. Rather, their goal is to make 20% of people wildly passionate, leave 60% with a positive impression, and be alright with 20% having a neutral or negative impression. If your marketing is not provocative, your marketing will not strike a chord with anyone.
As data-driven marketers, be careful not to use metrics that rely on general acceptance. For example, you should look at metrics like revenue-per-click and not just click-through-rate. Having the highest click-through-rate means nothing if your message is not resonating to the point of purchase.
Having the highest click-through-rate means nothing if your message is not resonating to the point of purchase.
If having the most profitable marketing means leaving some people with a negative impression of you, that is ok. The only thing worse than no marketing is watered down marketing.
4 - Brand Marketing != Product Marketing
Remember the difference between your brand and your products. Digital marketers often ignore brand marketing because of the ability to elegantly measure and optimize direct response product marketing.
What they’re missing is that you can use data-driven marketing to also perform data-driven brand building. How about a campaign to build awareness among influencers in your vertical? You can optimize the best way to reach these people and scale your spend to best execute on your goal. While you will have to change your metrics, the same optimization possibilities apply.
For example, if you are running a paid influencer campaign, you need to be thinking about what your CPM is, not your CPC. Remember, data should be used to assist in planning and reporting on campaigns, but you still need clear business-level objectives overlaying your marketing in order to know what to optimize.
Passion.
Why did we become marketers? We believe in the power of brands, the power of copy, the power of that one creative that is just oh so perfect.
Now that we live in a world which gives us the ability to make decisions that are smarter, we can gain a louder voice in our companies. We can scale and optimize our spend. We can grow top-line in new ways. However, we can’t descend into soulless marketing. Data-driven marketing needs to be about one thing: empowering marketers to most effectively build, maintain, and scale great brands.