What Do I Do With All This Information?

We spend a great deal of time collecting data. Data itself remains a primary talking point within the marketing industry. We’re all supposed to be amassing this massive cadre of information about our customers, potential customers and competition. 

Data on its own is meaningless. It’s a lot like dumping a pile of topsoil on your driveway. The topsoil has the potential to grow trees and gardens, but unless you know how to use it, it’s simply a pile of dirt.

The goal of any commercial venture is to put boots on the ground. Your business needs customers. Whether it’s orders placed through your website or foot traffic in your brick and mortar location, this goal hasn’t changed much since human beings began selling things to each other. Our ability to collect copious amounts of information is supposed to help us achieve that goal. Instead, most of us ignore it.

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve likely been approached by many companies scaring the living daylights out of you by warning that your business isn’t collecting enough data. But how much is enough? And how in the world do you begin to sift through it all?

DATA NEEDS TO SERVE A PURPOSE

This statement seems on the surface to be ridiculous. Of course data needs to serve a purpose. But for most of us, we’re collecting data simply because we can and we’ve been told we should. Every piece of data you collect should have an end point. Why else are you collecting it? Data doesn’t lie. It shows us where we’re succeeding and, more importantly, where we’re failing. Data is only a pile of topsoil until we use it for planting. 

DATA ALLOWS YOU TO SEE TRENDS

One of the primary uses of data is to view trends. A product-driven organization can see clearly and almost instantly what sells and what doesn’t. Information organizations such as news sites and entertainment companies can spot trends and provide content that is most desirable for their audiences. The types of trends your data can show depends on your business. From straightforward data trends such as abandoned shopping carts to where a user drops off your website, to more complex data algorithms that monitor traffic patterns, peak demand and negative feedback, there’s a tremendous value in data. 

For people who slept through algebra class, data analysis can seem daunting. Analyzing data is a learned skill. It requires an analytical mindset. Part of the fun of data analysis is looking for the obscure. Data isn’t only derived from inbound marketing. If you’re going to follow a transaction life cycle, you need to have information for the whole cycle. That includes your outreach (your advertising campaigns), behavior during the transaction, questions or comments during an online chat or through your sales staff, sales data, customer reviews and comments, and product defects and returns. Your business may have different touch points. Effectively using your data requires you to understand where these touch points exist. 

DATA COLLECTION OFTEN INFURIATES CUSTOMERS

Your customers watch the news. They read things online. They’re acutely aware that data breaches are an everyday occurrence. They’re becoming reticent to provide too many details. If you request too many private details, things like a Social Security number, a CVV code on a credit card, mother’s maiden name, etc., you will lose sales. There are many situations where confidential information is required. Customers used to provide that type of information willy-nilly. Today, requiring too much identifying information often leads consumers to search elsewhere. The decision process happens quickly. Too many questions, too many details, customers will abandon you.

Many companies try to harvest data that has little or nothing to do with the transaction taking place in order to fatten their marketing outreach. We build email lists in order to bombard our existing customers with promotional material. There’s a thin line between customer engagement and customer abuse. Do you really want to send e-blasts to customers who have no interest in what you’re promoting? 

BE WARY OF STORING TOO MUCH OF IT

If the NSA, the IRS and the Defense Department computers can be hacked, trust me, so can yours. The law regarding responsibility for the inadvertent release of personal data is still catching up with real life. At some point, one of the lawsuits by consumers against companies that have been hacked will stick and precedent will be set. But whether or not your company bears legal responsibility for data breaches, your company will have to answer to the consumer. It may be through customer boycotts or even through increased costs to implement extreme digital protections. 

How much data do you need? How much of it do you need to keep? How long do you need to keep it? What are you planning to do with it? Each of these questions needs an answer. If your business can’t answer these questions, it’s time to seriously look at the information you’re collecting.

DO SOMETHING WITH IT

You have at your fingertips the type of information Don Draper could only have dreamed about. Unless you use the data, there’s no reason to have it. Use your data to take action. If data trends are telling you that Product X is doing well during the ordering process but has a 45% defect rate, you should be focusing on improving Product X. If you regularly see negative comments regarding a particular portion of the consumer experience, maybe the wait time to place an order or lack of knowledge by the customer service team, that tells you that you need to target those particular weak points. Data tells us what’s happening. But it requires us to learn how to read it. And it requires that we have the desire to make the types of changes the data suggests.

Nobody’s perfect. Every business can improve. You have at your command enough information to figure out where you need improvement. You also have enough information to learn what other information you need. What pieces of data will allow your business to make educated decisions? What do you need to know? Why do you need to know it? Those are the questions you should be asking when you’re thinking about data collection. After all, who wants a giant pile of topsoil sitting in their driveway forever?

The Care & Feeding of Creatives

There they sit, huddled in the dark in front of movie screen-sized computer monitors, doing something with those weird pen things, surrounded by toys with their heads shrouded beneath enormous headphones. They’re your creative team. And they are nothing like you.

Creatives are a separate breed from every other group in your organization. Creativity isn’t magic and wizardry, but the good ones make it look that way.  Here are five things to remember if you’re managing a creative team or simply need to interact with one.

CREATING SOMETHING REQUIRES PERSONAL SACRIFICE

In order to produce artwork of any kind, be it for a gallery showing or a corporate promotion, a designer needs to pour some of themselves into it. There’s no getting around it. To produce something creative, one needs to create. And that requires a great deal of personal energy. Creatives are making a form of art. As such, they are making thousands of creative decisions that each impact another. Commercial design requires not only creativity but market awareness. There’s a lot of themselves creatives put into each project. Why is this an important point? Because it colors every interaction surrounding the project. You want your creative team to be passionate. In order to be passionate, they need to care. It’s very difficult to care in an environment that doesn’t foster cooperation and mutual respect. Creativity is a personal experience. Constructive criticism is an important part of that experience, but destructive criticism such as “this is crap” completely negates cooperation. If you do only one thing to make your creative team more effective, it’s to play nice. You’re all on the same team. Constructive criticism builds up, it doesn’t tear down.

2. CREATIVES REQUIRE SPACE AND TIME

Some people call it the zone, others call it letting their mojo out. No matter what it’s called, it is the single most important part of a creative’s job. Leave them alone. Not all the time, but be aware that their process is internal. For a salesperson, their process is external. When you’re baking a cake, you need to let it cook. Something I’ve effectively done in the past is to set “creative hours”, where all other departments understand that while the cake is baking, don’t open the oven. The flip side of that is having “office hours”, where members of other departments can meet with and collaborate with members of the creative team. Creativity requires dedicated blocks of time. That’s simply how it works. 

3. CREATIVES REQUIRE FEEDBACK

We all want to hear if we’re doing a good job. We also all need to hear if something we’re doing needs to be changed. Creatives are no different. Their job in any organization is to be part of a collaborative process. Whether it’s designing advertising for a magazine, building websites or executing the marketing strategy, clear and distinct feedback allows your creative team to quickly and effectively morph the project into its final iteration. Most creatives understand that their ideas and contributions are part of the puzzle. Some creatives get their noses bent out of joint when hearing criticism. The reason is sometimes arrogance, but most often it’s because they’ve had to pour so much of themselves into what they’re doing. Here are some tips on how to efficiently provide feedback to creatives:

Be clear about what you’re asking for. “I just don’t like it” isn’t a proactive criticism. A seasoned creative will ask detailed follow up questions if they hear that response, but it’s important to have at least a reasonable idea of why something doesn’t work. 

Engage the creative in the feedback process. There are few things a creative likes less than being dictated to. You hired this team for a reason. That reason was their creative abilities. You have a valuable resource available to you. Collaborative input will not only make the project stronger, but will enable both parties to have a stake in it.

If your business is based on external client feedback, bringing the creative into the conversation with the client can help eliminate delays and miscommunication. The need for creatives to have “creative hours” may be at odds with the urgency of an in-person client meeting. That’s where the Creative Director comes in. They’re the traffic cop, among other things. A Creative Director needs to have their head in both worlds, the creative and the day-to-day business. And they need to be able to offer alternatives and propose solutions. Creatives know what questions they need answered. A short client meeting can help eliminate errors or misunderstandings. Your creative team shouldn’t be your sales team. If an urgent client meeting is required outside of “office hours”, use your creative resource wisely. Understand that disrupting the creative flow can often take significant time to regain.

 If a creative project receives praise, let the creative know. In business, we are accustomed to only delivering negative feedback. We operate on a reactive basis, and forget to celebrate our wins. A little praise can go a long way.

4. CREATIVES WILL MAKE MISTAKES

Just like you, just like me, your creative team won’t get it right every time. Spell check doesn’t catch everything, especially if the wrong word is an actual word. Mistakes can be fixed. We’re all human. I’ve worked in many environments wherein strong, aggressive personalities have taken great joy in pointing out small errors. Remember that your goals are the same. You’ll get farther with kindness than hostility.

5. CREATIVES REQUIRE STRONG LEADERSHIP

Being a leader and being a boss are two very different things. A boss dictates. A leader gives people a reason to follow. Leaders are leaders because they’ve learned that each person under their leadership is unique. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. Effective leadership requires the ability to listen, to communicate, to empathize and to see the big picture. Creative leadership is a lot about mentorship. Some people prefer a strong hand, others require a softer touch. Learning that comes from actually engaging with your team. And leadership is also about learning to delegate. Throughout any creative team, there are people with skills at all different levels. A leader uses all of her or his resources so that everyone rises together. Sharing skills and tricks of the trade between the creative team not only builds up everyone’s skill set, but also builds a team. It’s hard to be in a competitive relationship with someone you’re helping and who’s helping you. Creativity fosters in a collaborative environment. And a collaborative environment doesn’t just happen. It requires a leader to move the pieces into place, and then to let the organic processes take place. 

Creativity requires a different muscle group than, say, your sales team or your customer service reps. Both of those groups can incorporate creativity into what they do, and should. But a dedicated creative team has an entirely different way of approaching the world. Their core job  is to create. They use different tools, need a different physical environment and bring different parts of themselves to bear than any other department. Creatives are a lot fun. They just need to be left alone sometimes in order to get the job done.