Geoff Wolf, EVP Client Strategy
Marketing strategies and tactics are like putting a puzzle together. There are simple 100-piece puzzles that can be solved easily, and there are more complicated versions with 1,000+ pieces that require patience, persistence and perseverance. Marketing challenges range from simple emails to multipart annual campaigns. But no matter how big the puzzle or how complex the marketing strategy, we find new and different ways to make all the pieces fit properly each time we put them together. For brands that are growing rapidly, how well the pieces fit becomes even more important.
Here is a secret – people who are good at solving puzzles are also good at marketing analysis. Let’s look at four specific things that puzzles and marketing have in common.
1) Framing Things Up
A puzzle person knows the first step is to create the frame. Marketing analysis begins in the same way. A good marketer is experienced at “framing” up the challenge that is necessary to develop actionable solutions. With any marketing challenge, there are specific elements that create boundaries for where time should be spent.
For example, if growing sales is the puzzle, then the four corners might be 1) visits to the website, 2) click-throughs deeper into the website, 3) shopping carts started and 4) successful conversions. The strategy to grow sales will involve fitting the elements of these four pieces together in a way that results in an upward trend.
On a more technical level, a set of fields becomes the frame in which all the data pieces must be assembled. These fields are like the frame of a puzzle in that they must contain all the necessary pieces and fit together in a certain way. Once this is done, tables can be set up and queries can be run so that data can be measured.
2) Trial and Error Expertise
There are different ways to fit pieces of a puzzle together and a “trial and error” process comes into play to arrive at success. “Trial and error” is also the foundation of marketing planning. In order to build a business case for marketing success, one has to arrange and rearrange the pieces until they come together in an acceptable way. (And it helps a lot if the person responsible is good at solving puzzles and enjoys the process.)
3) Attention to Details
Puzzle people are good at remembering specific details about each piece. They know they need that three-sided, oddly angled piece that’s partially blue to make all the other pieces work. For a marketing puzzle, this is the same as the analyst remembering that the last time they saw that combination of metrics, it fit perfectly into a particular actionable solution that worked.
4) “If-Then” Solutions
Math puzzles are synergistic with good marketing sense. Given three pieces of information, what does it take to figure out a fourth one? How can we spend less money but keep the same amount of sales flowing into our bank account? This is essentially a math puzzle that can be solved like any other puzzle. The key is being able to discern the key performance indicators that matter and how they must be combined to generate the expected outcome.
When the marketing objective is double digit (or more) growth, this part of the process for putting the pieces together becomes even very important. Top line growth always has to be balanced with expenses and ROI. This is where the “If” and the “Then” becomes the focus of the process.
So, when considering people for your marketing team – data analysts in particular – be sure to bring an old-fashioned, 100-piece puzzle and a simple math puzzle to the meeting. If they’re not able to whip them together fairly easily, you may get the same result when their desk is piled high with marketing puzzles waiting to be put together.
Need help solving your puzzle? Give Geoff Wolf, EVP Client Strategy, a call at 913-236-3401 or email geoffw@jschmid.com
Tags: analytics, catalog marketing, Geoff Wolf
