Marketing is an art. Good marketing is a science. Great marketing is an art AND a science.

Many marketers gravitated towards, or stumbled into, the discipline because of an interest in the artistic, visual, or communications-related topics in school as opposed to the core sciences. Not many marketing professionals, even at high levels, have formal training in analytics or statistics (the math behind the magic).

Great marketing has to be both artistic and scientific. Creativity without science is guessing, and only works for the extremely lucky. Science without the creativity is boring and can’t engage an audience… which is critical in the digital age where we are constantly bombarded by information. Only the unique or the personal or the relevant is retained, shared, and acted upon.

The Problem

Even though the internet and search engines have provided new ways of measuring the effect of marketing efforts more accurately, and targeting specific audiences more directly, many marketers still do not know how to use these tools, nor what to do with the metrics if/when they gather them. Continue reading →