Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

It's important to understand that analytics doesn't give answers. It only gives quantitative results. You still need a knowledgeable human to make the bridge from results to implications and indicated actions.

I've been involved in analytics and use of data for marketing decision support for years, and it's a common problem for the analytical capability to outstrip the ability for human interpretation and management intervention/decision.

You need to bring both along at the same pace. A smart marketer needs good information. And good information needs a smart marketer. We haven't found a way yet to program computers to get insights. They just provide the fodder from which humans get insights.

The solution to your problem is to find a marketer who knows how to ask the right questions and understand the context and limitations of the data that bear on the answers.

If you want to discuss this in more detail, I'm happy to do so privately. It's a topic that I've spent a lot of time on, including some research for a book I ghost-authored a few years ago. I've also been on the design team for two different marketing information systems and consulted for a leading provider of syndicated data and analytic services.

(Click on my screen name for contact info.)

The advice is all good, but it sounds like it is possible you lack a sound marketing planning process. A good consistent market planning process will create the value from the analytic systems you bring in. Without that, you will not create much value or change.

In marketing departments where the people are running around putting out fires and responding to urgencies, the analytics could even be resisted and resented. This will occur because the source of the problem is not in their control, so deep analysis of the problem just feels like blame.