Sorry Marketing Majors, Turns out Marketing is FULL of Numbers

 Working at a coffee shop recently, I overheard a college student tell her friend/study partner, “Marketing is for business majors who don’t like numbers.”

Bless her heart.

If she only knew.

I didn’t want to burst her bubble so I minded my own business and continued working (on a spreadsheet, ironically enough). But she and her marketing major friends are in for a real treat. 

Sooner or later she’ll figure out that marketing is, in fact, filled with numbers. And statistics. And formulas. Us marketing nerds get excited about data and analytics, especially when they’re trending the way we want or help prove our the effectiveness.

We analyze page views, CTRs and campaign results. We calculate ROI. We use predictive formulas to determine budgets.

Bosses (or clients) want RESULTS, and numbers speak loudly. It’s hard to argue with a 10% conversion rate or 400% increase in website visits.A cool looking website is great, but if it doesn’t bring in new leads it’s not doing its job. A campaign might be clever and witty, but if it doesn’t increase sales we can’t claim success. Beauty (or humor or “coolness”) is subjective, but numbers aren’t.

Yep, numbers are important.

• They tell us what is working, so we can do more of it.
• They show us what ISN’T working, so we can adjust.
• Numbers inform us of where our leads come from so we can act accordingly.
• Utilizing numeric formulas such as Lifetime Value of a Customer or Customer Cost of Acquisition help us segment and target customers effectively.
• Analytics tell us where our customers lose interest, so we can make changes to keep them around longer. 

Fortunately, there are some pretty amazing tools out there to help marketers gather and analyze this data. Google Analytics is a good place to start, and marketing automation software (we use HubSpot) provides multiple reports, charts and statistics for businesses. 

So, although we may not want the world to know because we prefer to consider ourselves creative geniuses, the best marketers are also number geeks.

In today's results-driven world, we have to be.

Sorry, marketing majors.

If you’d like to talk number with us, we’d be happy to! adWhite offers free marketing assessments and would love to learn more about your business. Contact us today.