Back in February, when we were still attending in-person events, I went to a local Marketing industry meetup and sat beside a person who was a Director of Marketing for a enterprise level company.
I introduced myself as someone providing courses that help marketers make use of data to demonstrate marketing’s value and optimize their programs. We talked about some of the current challenges marketers face.
When we talked about how she uses data and why, she did answer with a “I have a tech team that deals with the data”. Maybe the luxury of being enterprise level. Still… maybe what I see at times as a giving it all over to the tech team because you believe it belongs in their realm.
Most data scientists would be happy with hearing that. Thinking that data science is all about the technical part of it. The collection. The tools for analyze. Having knowledge of things like R and machine learning. They like owning the expertise.
But I’m not like most data scientists. Maybe because I think real data science is a discipline where you combine business knowledge, technical knowledge and data analysis. That it is an enabling role supporting the business.
I believe that marketers need to know enough about data science to be able to direct the technical team. And to be able to discern at what point you step back and let the technical team do their thing. In the end it’s a collaboration.
I think some of that delegate it all to the tech team comes from being a little overwhelmed by it all. Sometimes data science can seem all magical and that it needs a tech wizard to deal with it.
At the same time I think that there is a little bit of a data scientist in most modern marketers. When you look at how I defined data science, modern marketers are called on to have both business knowledge and analysis skills. They can delegate some of the tech – to either tech people or tech tools.
First you need to take the mystery out of it. Pull back the curtain and embrace a little data science yourself.
What do you think? What is your biggest challenge with data? Hit reply and let me know.
