Evolutionary theory (yes, evolutionary theory) shows how to leap beyond data analytics when transformative change is needed.
I recently reconnected with an old client and friend, Bill Lucchini. He's CEO of the medical software company Nextech Systems. Our meeting reminded me of a conversation we had almost 20 years ago about the nature of marketing. The conversation couldn’t be more relevant today.
At the time Bill was at Intuit as the GM of a QuickBooks product. He confided in me that he found marketing frustrating because it seemed like a matter of opinion: everyone had an opinion and there was no way to tell who was right. Even after the fact you usually couldn’t tell what drove results! He liked The Seidewitz Group’s focus on bringing marketing into the realm of science, evidence and testing.
Fast forward almost 20 years and everything in marketing is about data. You have data analytics, predictive analytics, funnel metrics and much more.
Which got me to thinking…have we gone too far? The pendulum has swung heavily to numbers, analytics and testing. Has it swung too far away from the qualitative?
There’s a good argument and good science that it has. Analyzing data is great for optimizing current strategies. But it’s not very useful when you need transformative, major strategic change.
Why is this and what do we do about it? There’s actually science behind it, and it comes from evolutionary theory… (continue article on LinkedIn)