The world of marketing is flooded with data, and with technological advances it is likely that more and more data will become available in the future. Loyalty cards, web traffic data, POS data together with retail audit, tracking and bespoke studies – how do marketers cope with this torrent? Many organizations have responded, in particular in the zone of shopper marketing, by employing armies of analysts, with analytics lying at the heart of all shopper marketing activity.
But it appears that many marketers have a different strategy for handling all of this data. They ignore it!
I’m reminded of one of my first experiences in China – spending many months collecting data about what exactly was causing one of our major brands sales to dip. It was my first assignment and I was proud of the rigor that we had put into the work – far more than the business had ever done before. The case was rock solid: a recent price increase had not been taken forward by the trade: margins were crushed and retailers had stopped buying. I was quite rightly proud. My boss saw it differently. ‘Nonsense, he said ‘ it’s all down to counterfeits’. The fact that my data proved this not to be true would not sway him. His gut told him something else.
It appears that my ex-boss is not alone. A recent survey by CEB suggests that marketers use data in only 11% of their decisions – trusting intuition and judgment rather than tables and charts. The article goes on to challenge marketers who flip the other way – who become too obsessed with the data and either never make a decision, or keep changing their minds.
More data coming – everyday. The idea that it can be ignored is daft – but the other extreme is also dangerous. Finding the middle ground is apparently tricky – but here five key suggestions as to how to balance gut instinct and market data.
Too much data is still too much. Don’t buy or acquire data without an understanding of what you will do with it. Yes – looking at data creates insight – sometimes in an apparently random way. But buying or acquiring data in the hope that it will create a spark of something profound is a fair leap of faith. Rather, buy data you will use for a specific purpose – then marvel at the extra wonders it reveals that you were’t expecting. Double benefits!
Use the data you have before getting any more: On our projects I am, unfortunately no longer surprised that we can quote data back at our clients that they think is new – yet they gave it to us. In the rush to acquire new data, first review what is already in place.
Challenge the data with your gut: If it doesn’t feel right it might not be. Check the data is meaningful, that the sample doesn’t dictate the outcome. See if the data could support other answers. Don’t ignore the data, but don’t let it lead.
Challenge your gut with the data: Beliefs are powerful things, but even the smartest of us aren’t always right. Allow the possibility that your strongest belief could possibly be wrong. If it was, what would the data look like? And if your gut instinct was right all along, you’ll now have a data based proposition which will be much easier to sell to others.
Check the gut isn’t making you blind: It’s easy to allow our beliefs or gut feeling to influence how we look at data. We all love to be right, so when we receive a fresh data pack it is tempting to use it to support our views. But if we really believe in our views, as marketers we should have the courage to put them under scrutiny. Look for the opposite. Look to prove your gut feeling wrong. If you fail, then you have the wonderful knowledge that you were right all along
Blend gut, instinct, data and discipline. Experience is fabulous. It really is. Our experience is one of the biggest sources of insight – experience wires our brains to think differently (which is why getting groups of people together to create insights is a good idea, and why it is a great idea to get an external consultant to facilitate!) But to not check our instincts using data is dangerous. Sometimes necessary for sure; and sometimes insight is actually a blinding flash of the obvious, but to add a discipline of testing our guts as we would any other hypothesis is a good discipline.
Do you have any personal examples of where your gut and experience has won over data, or the other way around: where data has been used to destroy the ‘existing wisdom’ of experience and to create a better solution for the future? I’d love to hear examples of where a blend of gut, instinct, data and discipline has created a massive step-change in your business.
