This stanza is from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner “: “Water everywhere; water everywhere, no drop to drink.”
Do you wonder what this quote has to say about marketing? The volume of data that marketers have access to is overwhelming, just like the water in the oceans.
The amount of marketing data is increasing exponentially due to the proliferation of new channels, increased competition, distinct segments, shorter product lives, higher customer expectations, and greater price transparency.
If all this data cannot be collected, analyzed, and turned into actionable insights, then it is useless. It is like salt water for someone who is adrifting and is dried on an ocean.
Data skills vital to marketing
Recent research from the Economist Intelligence Unit revealed that marketing leaders consider creating a data-driven strategy and using predictive analytics to be one of their top priorities. Participants in the survey suggested that marketers often lack data science and business analysis skills that would allow them to derive valuable and actionable insights from large and small datasets. Many organizations also lack a strategy for information technology and data science.
This capability gap has opened up huge opportunities for data scientists from other disciplines to enter the ranks of marketing. Demand for data scientists is soaring (Harvard Business Review called it “the sexiest career of the 21st Century”).
Here is a brief job/skills summary for marketing executives who do not have this position on their staff. Data scientists manipulate and transform data to produce meaning. They need to have excellent technical skills, such as the ability to devise algorithmic solutions for complex business problems. Data scientists should use both structured and unstructured information, as well as internal and external data. This will help organizations make better decisions and gain a competitive edge.
Storytelling is a Data Skill
Data scientists must use their data to tell stories. The best data scientists can support their analysis with spreadsheets and visualization tools. The real value of data scientists lies in their ability to transform the data into a narrative for internal and external communications.
Johnathan Harris reminds us, as the creator of We Feel Fine and Whale Hunt, that “the data are just part of the tale.” He continues, “I believe people have forgotten how powerful stories about humans are. They’ve replaced their empathy with a fetishistic obsession with data, patterns, networks and total information.” “The human stuff is what matters most, and data should enhance it.”
Five Tips on Data Storytelling
Many marketing executives with whom we work have asked us for suggestions on how to help data scientists move beyond data and become storytellers. Here are five tips to help you do just that.
- Start by identifying the question you need to answer (think of it like a mystery that must be solved). For example, which customers are likely to purchase a certain product/service? What is the best vertical segment that should be pursued next? What are the main customer touchpoints affecting the customer experience after the sale? The answers will help you make your story more relevant to your audience.
- Asking the right questions about your data will help you collect the “evidence” needed to solve the mystery. Without asking the right questions, you may end up in a rabbit hole if you try to get insights from data.
- Create a story, establish the scene, and identify characters such as customers or competitors. The narrative should be clear and memorable. Good stories have a plot. Are you the leader of a category or a challenger in an established market? The story must inspire action or have a compelling conclusion. The story should convey the character’s intentions and perceptions.
- Decide which data you want to include and organize it to support the story, the characters, and the plot. Tables are not readable for most people. They need images. Visualize data to captivate the audience. Visualization is the art of telling a narrative through the visual representation of statistical data. Daniel Waisberg is an analytics advocate at Google. He says that “good data visualization stands alone.”
- Adapt your story to the audience. It may be necessary to adjust the language, tone, and focus of a story depending on who hears it. The C-suite might prefer a short version of the story, with just the highlights and suggested actions. A person who is responsible for creating the action plan might want to know more about the story and the relationships between all the characters.
Marketers need to be able to use data in many different ways. For example, they can inform an organization about the buying habits of their customers or match personas to channels and touchpoints.