With more and more data at marketers’ fingertips, it’s easy to assume it makes the job of marketing a product that much easier.
You know what works and doesn’t, you know what your user base does and doesn’t like, so the likelihood of hitting the sweet spot goes up.
But as marketing gains an almost digital omnipotence, is the artistic side more swiftly dying out?
The question of whether marketing is an art or a science has been going on for generations. George Torok, author of Secrets of Power Marketing, concludes that it’s a bit of both, but notes a vital distinction.
“I believe that it is both art and science. The science should lead and measure; the art should inspire and create,” he concludes.
Dennis Moore is the senior vice president and general manager of master data management (MDM) at Informatica.
He, more than most, would be expected to bang the data drum. But as he puts it, “you don’t have to be an electrical engineer to be able to turn on a light bulb.”
That’s not to say you shouldn’t take advantage of the data on offer, however.
“In the past, a good marketer was somebody who understood the customers need and understood the product,” Moore says. “They had a real empathy with the buyer.
“That will remain true, but now you don’t have to work only by gut feel. You can take advantage of insights, of science.
David Akka, the UK MD of Magic Software, sees the difference in the B2B and B2C markets.
“If you look at the B2B sector, I think marketing, for a very long time, has been some sort of applied science,” he explains. “You look at automating tools, the need to manage funnels, the need to manage pipelines, and it’s all there.
“I think in the retail sector, it’s a bit more of an art. Retailers spend a lot of money, especially in big places like malls, why you would use their shop and not another shop.
“But the whole point is to get into the shop and then, it’s the sales team that’s supposed to turn that into cash.”
This it the rub. Technology is great at getting you into buildings, but not so good at keeping you there.
Yet Moore recounts an in-store situation where simple data science massively helped out. How many times have you been to a shop, bought an item of clothing, and been offered a pair of shoes to go with it?
“That sounds extremely logical,” admits Moore. “But it turns out that data science, using an automated recommendation engine, found that infact for example a man, if they bought a dress shirt, the thing they should recommend for them would be a dress shirt.
“Men will buy seven shirts at the same time, they will buy the exact same shirt in three different colours, or two different colours.
“A lot of times human intuition is right, other times the data science can enhance that human intuition,” he adds.
Moore attributes the rise of the internet of things (IoT) as a game-changer in giving retailers more data to work with.
“It’s entirely possible now that you walk into a store and it recognises you even while you’re walking around,” Moore says. “That store can be putting out personalised offers and customising messages. In the same way we observe how somebody traverses through the website, we can do the same thing in the real world now.
“Sales and marketing need to be focused on ‘how do you do a great job of delivering a customised personal experience without crossing the line into being creepy?’
“Anybody who shops on Amazon knows they’re using data as a competitive weapon, and Jeff Bezos will say that ‘your margin is my competitive advantage’,” he adds.
The real-time personalised experience is a big determining factor in the customer’s experience. But, as a report from Urban Airship recently noted, personalisation – particularly in the form of push notifications – can cross the line and be too much for users.
Akka advises caution, although admitting there was a certain segment of the market which was “addicted to being notified”.
“It’s the difference between the news on the BBC channel and News 24 – the people who need it will want to understand what happens in real time,” he explains.
Speaking to two men who work in technology – Akka even calls himself a “recovering techie” on his blog – it’s not a surprise that they both see the scientific elements of marketing. But there’s a long way to go before all the kinks are ironed out.
