Last week I posted about attaching dollars to statistics in order to make sense of them (and to relate them to how your business is doing). During a discussion about the article, someone mentioned that it was a great non-marketing post. I didn’t really respond at the time, but the statement has bothered me since. Statistics are vital to marketing. Without statistics, marketing is just a hit-or-miss blanket approach without a strategy and end-goal. Statistics are how you know what is working and what should be improved (or dropped) and figuring out the next step to achieving your business goals.
Using statistics properly will show how various marketing efforts are affecting your bottom line (return on investment – ROI) so you can figure out how much to spend – and on what. You’ll also learn more about your customers, your product, and your business. Statistics can give you information about how to improve your product, how to increase customer satisfaction and what your business is doing well.
Many people think of marketing as a soft, touchy-feely pseudo-science, but done properly, marketing should be just as measureable as other business processes and should provide vital information to run your business.
(photo by chantrybee @ FlickrCC)