Many people believe that analytics is a hard-to-understand science, and just the thought of it induces anxiety. However, today I will help you overcome the fear of analyzing data by explaining why it is an art and should be viewed as a beautiful process that decodes powerful insights, which can significantly impact our business for better or worse.
As usual, we will explore one of the most magical and successful companies in the world to understand these concepts deeply and learn how to apply this knowledge in the real world.
What are analytics?
First things first, the SAS Institute defines marketing analytics as "the process of understanding data to evaluate the performance of current marketing elements." In other words, it is a way to track the performance of marketing efforts to evaluate whether or not they are producing optimal results or to assess what the company could do better.
With that in mind, analytics might seem a lot like a science, making us think of long Excel spreadsheets filled with numbers that need to be analyzed. This scenario is partly true; however, there is much more art involved in analyzing data than you might think.
What would Disney do?
Consider this: imagine Disney wants to open a new ride in one of its Orlando theme parks, but they are unsure which movie should be featured. They want something that the audience will love. Before making a creative decision, they ask their analytics team to compile a report that gives them the top three options, along with the data to justify each choice.
So, the analytics team gets to work... If you were part of the team, where would you start pulling data from? That is the first major decision they need to make to begin analyzing. The analytics team decided to track viewer behaviors on Disney+ to determine which movies are the most popular at the moment. However, they realized some information was missing, so they decided to look at how much money each movie made in theaters as well as its overall satisfaction score.
After analyzing all of this, they opt for a closer public reach and go straight to the social media team to do some social listening and get a better understanding of what the audience wants. Meanwhile, they also analyze the number of people that go daily to each park and make sure to get an overall view of demographics such as names, ages, and rides they liked to understand which types of rides and movies will resonate with them. To do this, they pull up data from the My Disney Experience App.
Once all this information and more is gathered, it is time to put together a final report to demonstrate which three movies should get a ride, and why, based on data. The answers might sound something like this:
" ‘Coco’ is one of the best Pixar movies according to Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 8.4. It also possesses different songs and cultural elements that resonate with audiences. Additionally, a certain number of Latin people go daily to Epcot to engage with the Mexican pavilion and celebrate their culture. The most liked ride at Epcot is ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind’, which many people love on social media since it combines thrills with music and favorite characters. In conclusion, ‘Coco’ is a strong option for a new ride since it ties all of these elements together.”
To report the results, of course, they should put together a more polished presentation with actual data to convince the executives, but you get the idea…
How can I see analytics as an art?
In other words, analyzing data may not sound as creative as it is, but finding the data is a process that requires people to think outside the box to find possible data sources that can provide the answers they are looking for.
I hope from now on you will view analytics as the art of finding data, and start being creative to get the most information that could tell you whether your marketing efforts are performing well or not. Also, do not forget about the art of building data reports, because they have to be appealing and easy to understand.
I hope you enjoyed this post, and if you want to learn more about marketing strategies, I invite you to check out this article about understanding the audience to craft winning campaigns. See you real soon!
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