My two cents on the subject. For the young guns in marketing
With the advent of new tools, technologies and platforms, the role of strategic planning has evolved significantly in recent times, more so for the digital-first agencies. Young marketers and strategists who are currently at the cusp of mainline and digital are often seen caught in the conundrum of gut vs data.
Gut instinct or data-driven approach? You need both.
In the age of data-driven marketing, relying on gut instinct may seem counterintuitive. However, multiple studies have shown that listening to your gut can yield more accurate decisions. In advertising, going by the gut instinct may work when you are crafting a campaign for the masses but when it comes to digital marketing, overlooking data insights might cost you heavily.
Data helps you get a better understanding of the customers – their needs, behaviour, attitudes, journey so on and so forth.. Using data insights, you can develop communication that’s not only compelling but also resonates well with the audience. Moreover, AI-powered tools enable us to predict customer behaviours to a certain extent, personalise the campaigns at scale, and optimise campaign performance in real-time. Furthermore, employing listening tools periodically allow you to understand the sentiment around the brand, understand consumer pulse, identify advocates and opponents and drive your strategy in the right direction.
Having said that, despite all the hoopla around data-driven marketing in this day and age, you should not undermine the importance of old school instinct-driven hypothesis-based approach. Instinct, intuition and impulse are still the most important ‘tools’ to build a brand. Data-driven approach, on the other hand, helps bring personalisation, customise communication and drive engagement.
”One of the most useful skills to have is to know when to abandon logic, because not everything that makes sense works and not everything that works makes sense”.
Rory Sutherland, Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
There will always be a tendency to get drowned in data. Learn to navigate
Data-driven decision making holds significant value in strategic planning as it helps create more relevant, relatable and customised campaigns than ever before. However, once you start digging, there will be a tendency to get drowned in data. Especially if you are someone who starts randomly pooling all the data together to find the insight. Such an approach makes data analysis a herculean task, still it doesn’t yield any significant result as you are investing your time trying to find a needle within a haystack…
Always start with the objective. Build some hypotheses, maybe. And then look for data that could help you find the right answers. Prioritize the data, analyse the data and then draw insights. The insights should be able to help you arrive at something concrete, something actionable.
“Advertising has grown more complicated. There is more data and research than ever before. But just because you know what your customer had for lunch and who they follow on TikTok, doesn’t mean you know how to inspire them or make them remember you. That can only come from somewhere human and instinctual. Trusting the gut of a singular voice like Riswold is hard to translate into [return on investment] and language that accountants can understand.”
ARTICLE ON JIM ROSWOLD BY JOSHUA HUNT, FT MAGAZINE
Effective data analysis and interpretation have become critical skills for strategic planners as transforming raw data into actionable insights is something they are expected to be good at.
Recipe of success in a cookieless world
A recent data summit hosted by The Drum estimates that 70% of consumers have gone “data dark.” And as per a research estimate, Apple’s privacy changes alone cut ad ROI by 38% and caused a 25% drop in mobile ad spend!
Strategists need to understand the importance of first-party data. Brands or agencies who never invested in first-party data might face strong headwinds navigating the cookieless world while those who mastered it will surely stay ahead of the pack. 1PD not only helps understand the audience better but also lets you map their ever evolving behavioural patterns in terms of mindset, content consumption, media choices and purchase journey as well, thereby letting you identify the right set of audience and reach out to them with the right messaging at the right time.
Reach out if you are keen to explore more about 1PD and discover how it can help you achieve your marketing goals.