Sunday 13 February 2011

Creativity vs analytics: How to find the balance in developing your online strategy


  I stumbled across this interview piece I did a while back for B2B Marketing Magazine and thought I should post here. 


With the rise of Multivariate Testing (MVT) and other analytics tools, more and more brands are using data-driven, actionable insight to develop their marketing strategies. But is this approach clashing with or even restricting the ability to develop a creative, experiential brand differentiation?

Zia Zareem-Slade, head of experience planning at EMC Consulting, works closely with user experience and creative experts and is often faced with this conundrum. Should businesses rely solely on analytical data to define their marketing strategies? Or should creativity lead the way?

B2B Marketing asked Zia to put together her five golden rules for best practice in finding the all important balance. Here is what she came up with….

1.     Creativity needs insight
Creativity is not simply a dark art based on instinct, most creatives will tell you that their most successful ideas are often information driven. As a creative team you are trying to get people to respond in a more meaningful way. In order to develop a solution that actually achieves this, you need some level of real insight and therefore you need to ensure that  the insight generated by Analytics and MVT are comprehensible to the creative team .

  1. Do not leave analytics to IT!
The biggest failure I see is when companies aren’t using MVT at all. Add to this, the misconception that this should be owned by the IT department - wrong. As we approach 2010, the digital world will continue to grow and disciplines such as MVT will need to be integrated across all disciplines as standard. So now is the time to start.

  1. Be measured and focused
Analytics and MVT are powerful tools, but it’s all too easy to either try and chuck every variable into the mix and test everything all at once, or use the analytics to the point of knowing every number but knowing nothing all at the same time. It’s key that you don’t get over excited, but stay measured and focused. You need to be clear about what you are trying to find out, and where it fits in with your wider objectives.

4.     Know what your customers are doing
Analytics and MVT are your eyes on the ground and can answer questions such as ‘what are customers getting distracted by’ and ‘where are our customers going’? This is how you enhance and improve the experience of customers. Here you can test all variables including buttons, font size etc. It tells you statistically what your customers find best. However MVT should not replace user testing because what customers tell you they want through user testing can be different to what they actually want. MVT is sure fire way to determine this. It gives you unique insight in to how they actually want your website to look. Then it’s down to the creative team to come up with a solution that meets these requirements.

  1. Work together
This might come as a surprise, but both sides should be perfect ‘bedfellows’. Ultimately, what both sides are aiming to do is modify a brand and people’s experience of it. The key is for both sides to work in tandem with each other, not against each other.  Designers can’t do their job without analytics because they need to know what is going on, in order to make sure their ideas are in line with what customers are responding to.

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