Market with data first, art second

Much of marketing can be examined through the lenses of qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Observation fills in the gaps for which we lack data.

When considering whether to employ qualitative or quantitative methods to make decisions, such as choosing a solution for your problem, it’s always best to employ the scientific method.

Marketing is a science as much as it is an art.

The scientific method involves creating hypotheses about what we believe is happening and finding ways to test if that is indeed correct.

So, if we believe that our branding is constraining our business, we find a way to test our branding.

We should always be working on the highest priority item.

And while sometimes we are absolutely confident that we are working on what benefits us the most, once we sit down and have actually achieved what we set out to do – there’s no real result, or a disappointing one.

Your marketing operations should be about driving sales and building reputation.

One of the cornerstones of using the scientific method is agreeing that there can be ground truths.

Ground truths are facts we know to be true because they can be measured and observed.

“Our customers love ice cream” is not a ground truth unless you have gone out and found a significant statistical sample size proving they do indeed love ice cream.

Unless you have an ice cream shop. But even then, they might just like ice cream - not love it.

Marketing is not an exact science. We will almost never have absolutes.

The majority of absolutes we know about our customers are the identifying features and characteristics of our product that they could not purchase it without.

(The only exception is if someone is buying as a proxy for someone else in their team.)

And so, because we often do not have absolutes in customer discovery, especially in the early or product-evolving stages of a company, we need to carefully weigh our qualitative and quantitative analysis.

When we are very confident that our data reflects a ground truth, we give more importance to the numbers than words and theory (the art).

When we are not confident or do not have data on a topic, we have to give more importance to the art AND have an obligation to see if there are ways to get data to support ourselves.

Data speaks for itself. Its truth doesn't care if you feel confident or unconfident. But the process by which it has been collected as well as its transformations needs to have been done according to *scientific and mathematical truths.*

On the other hand, if you are not careful with data but use it anyway, you can make huge mistakes that throw off your trajectory by constructing a false reality that your mindset exists in.

In conclusion, when approaching problems, ask yourself:

1. Do I have the data to help me answer this question?
2. If not, how do I obtain the data?
3. If having data is unrealistic, what does my marketing intuition tell me?

When using your intuition, go by first principles.

Do not overcomplicate things.