Effective Marketing — Art or Science?

While teaching a class on building marketing plans, one of the attendees asked if marketing was more art than science or vice versa. That was a very insightful question because effective marketing is directly correlated to how well you collect and analyze data. However, once you have a clear understanding of your buyers, you must use engaging imagery and content that they find relevant and inspiring, which is truly an art form.

As writers, understanding the difference between the art and science of marketing is very important because the better you are at marketing, the greater your exposure. If you are writing to release ideas and passions in your mind, then it may not be critical, but if your goal is to sell books, increase knowledge, or bring people joy page by page, effective marketing is a must.

The Science of Marketing

In most cases, the level of notoriety and loyalty we desire, comes from a comprehensive understanding of your audiences. More specifically, the people who are most likely to purchase your book, join your newsletters, follow you on social media, and visit your website. We gain insight into these audiences by examining three data points; demographics, geographics; and psychographics.

Demographics

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, demographics are “the statistical characteristics of human populations (such as age or income) used to identify markets”. Within those characteristics you can gain insight into who finds your content interesting enough to engage.

As consumers we are constantly barraged with people trying to interrupt our lives with their messaging, instead of trying to have a conversation with like minded people.

When you take the time to analyze data from your social media platforms, surveys, or website statistics, you can gain information on those who consistently engage your posts, articles, and blogs. This information allows you to build a profile of your target audiences demographically (age, gender, income, etc.).

Why is that information important, you may ask? Bob Burg is credited with the saying “people do business with people they know, like, and trust”, which is a clear indication of a perceived relationship.

Demographic information allows you to build those relationships because you understand characteristics of your audiences including personalities, behaviors, beliefs, and media preferences. Once the basis of the relationship has been established, you can introduce your solution to a problem they have or may have through marketing.

One of my favorite examples of a company who launched a product by understanding their buyer, is the first iPod commercial from 2001 (see below).

Apple could have easily used a famous performer or athlete to introduce the iPod, but instead used their knowledge of who their customer was to “go to market”. This campaign resonated so well, that the iPod sold 7.3 million units in the first three years.

How this benefits you as a writer is you can include some of your audiences’ traits in your writing. If your readers tend to be more sarcastic, use some sarcasm in your writing. Additionally, you can position your writing from the perspective of these traits, such as a blog titled, “Being Normal is Overrated”.

Geographics

As you become better at identifying your audiences, you want to begin segmenting them into subgroups to market to them more effectively. Geographic segmentation represents a delineation of your audience by location categories (regions, states, cities, neighborhoods, etc.). This will not only make your marketing more effective through understanding what makes the people in those segments similar or different but will be a foundation for growth opportunities as you expand to similar locations in different locations.

For example, if a social media post had a great response among men 55+. You would look to see if there was any geographic significance in terms of a particular region of the country. Let’s say this segment was more engaged in the Northeast from NY to Maine. This information would certainly be valuable in your marketing because it alerted you to the need to add nuances of that segment including things like sports, seafood, snow, and accents.

Moreover, this information gives you an opportunity to look at marketing to 55+ men in other regions of the U.S. that are similar in size, climate, and interests.

Psychographics

Psychographic segmentation helps us understand the goals, challenges, emotions, values, and habits, that drive our customers. Simply stated, psychographics are the motivations of your audiences, which can range from religious and political beliefs to self-esteem and pleasure.

If we stay with the 55+ demographic from the previous example, psychographic traits could include fiscally conservative, strong family loyalty, and retirement focused. As you can imagine this adds another dimension to the ability to build relationships with this market segment, which can ultimately lead to increased revenue, but more importantly, loyalty to your brand.

The Art of Marketing

The culmination of the science of marketing is the production of all your marketing collateral, content marketing, advertising, and customer engagement. Using imagery and content to reflect who your target audience is, what they believe in, and how your product was designed specifically for them. Seth Godin calls them our “tribes” (amazing video in the link, but too long to post here).

All the data we have obtained in the science of marketing has made it possible for us to identify those who have similar beliefs and goals. It is the relationships we build with them that leads to our success, but the artistry is in the building of those relationships.

One way of building strong relationships is to personify your tribe. Give them an appearance, name, and attributes that are consistent with the data. Once again using our NE 55+ man, his persona could be as follows:

This is New England Dave. He’s attributes are as follows:

· 55–70 years of age

· Married w/ adult children

· Strong family values

· College educated

· Moderate Republican or Conservative Democrat

· Not a practicing religious person, but believes in a higher power

· Upper middle-class income ($90K — $150K)

· Sports enthusiast

· Loves to travel

Using this profile, we can then begin to think about Dave as a friend of ours and how we would communicate with him to build our relationship. For example, if we are writing an article about building stronger teams in the workforce, here is an image I believe would be more effective with Dave than the typical office stock photo.

Since I am trying to build a relationship with Dave, the title of the article would be “The Relationships We Build”. The approach of the article would be building the same level of commitment to our personal relationships at the office and how the same dynamics apply.

Even if Dave has some level of disfunction in his personal relationships, the article can address how great relationships are built, repaired, and shared throughout our lives. We would also cover how that then spreads into the homes of our employees, communities, and society.

Of course, the downside to the artistry of marketing is it can take a long time to find the right images and positioning the content, but it is well worth the effort.

Back when I used to blog on a regular basis, it was really to get thoughts out of my head. I really didn’t have an audience in mind, but to my surprise I gained more than 1,500 followers. That number is nearing 2,700 now, but I realize it would have grown faster if I had taken the time to analyze who my “tribe” was and is. I have started doing that now and this article and others are my attempts to better identify my peeps.

So I will leave it up to you whether science or art is more important or maybe it’s a combination of both.