Whether you want to advance your existing career or you are starting out, understanding marketing analytics is a crucial skill to ensure your success. Marketers are multi-taskers by nature using a blend of skillsets to get the various marketing jobs done and data analysis, in particular, is one essential skill that should be considered in the marketing toolkit.
Increase Your Job Success
Data shows you what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and what you should adjust. It informs every decision that you make. As a result, if you want to increase your job success, you have to get better at managing your data. That means analyzing it, communicating with it, sharing it, and keeping it clean.
But, despite its importance, 48% of marketing managers report that managing their data is a significant challenge. For instance, to stay ahead of the curve, you need to beef up your data management skills right now and a marketing automation set-up can help you do so.
Study Up
However, there are several blogs and books that provide insights into the best data marketing strategies and marketing analytics. There is a lot of information out there on the subject that it can be overwhelming. Here are some great options to start with:
- Think With Google
- Google Analytics Blog
- Harvard Business Review
- Data Science for Business: What You Need to Know About Data Mining and Data-Analytic Thinking
- The Analytical Marketer: How to Transform Your Marketing Organization
Subscribe, Follow, Join!
Most importantly, gain knowledge from the experts. Find them on Twitter, LinkedIn groups, and subscribe to newsletters. Leverage the work of experts to stay up to date with the ever-changing data management landscape. For example:
Newsletters:
Twitter:
LinkedIn Group:
- Big Data, Analytics, Business Intelligence & Visualization Experts Community
- Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI in Marketing and Retail)
Get Certified
However, there are several courses that you can take to earn certifications in analytics and data management. Not only will you learn a lot about efficiently managing your data but you will leave with a professional certification to add to your resume. Here are some courses to consider:
- Google Analytics Qualification, which is free for Google Partners. Once you finish the training programs you take a 90-minute exam. If you score 80% or over you earn your certification
- The Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Marketing Analytics Certificate is an 8 or 9-hour class that costs $479 for DMA members and $799 for non-members.
- General Assembly Data Analysis Online Courses offer an 11-week course for $1,250.
- The University of Washington offers a Certificate in Digital Marketing Analytics offers an 8-month curriculum for $3,297.
- Penn State offers a Graduate Certification Marketing Analytics which includes four courses for a whopping $11,160.
Listen and Watch
There is also a wealth of knowledge to be gained from podcasts, and YouTube videos like TED talks. Here are a few to check out:
- The Modern Marketer’s New Executive Dashboard with Matt Heinz
- Tying Your B2B Marketing to Revenue Attribution
- Zeynep Tufekci’s Machine Intelligence Makes Human Morals More Important
- Alan Smith’s Why You Should Love Statistics
- Tricia Wang’s The Human Insights Missing From Big Data
Visualize
Presenting your data in a clear way that is easily consumable is just as important as what you have learned from it. Make sure that your charts and reports are both actionable and shareable. Some of the best strategies for creating clear visual reports include using contrasting colors and choosing the appropriate chart or visualization options for the data you are trying to illustrate.
Tell Better Stories
Also, make sure that your data is telling a compelling story. Data storytelling means that you take boring data and you lay it out in an interesting way. You essentially highlight and market the ideas that you have concluded from the data.
Data doesn’t have to be boring, it isn’t the enemy of creativity. However, it empowers you with the information that you need to make better decisions. That being said it isn’t the end all be all.
In conclusion, don’t shut down and let the data take over because while an abundance of data gives you wonderful insights that lead you to the questions you need to ask it is still up to the marketer to give the answers. You must interpret the data to explain what it all means.
