No, it’s not the budget.
It’s not a lack of collaboration.
They’re certainly creative and good at what they do.
But there’s about a 1 in 3 chance that they don’t have the analytical skills they need in a data-whelmed world.
The impact of this is seismic. Data-savvy marketing teams drive millions in revenue and build lasting customer loyalty. The rest? Well, they’re stuck still celebrating “likes” while their competitors laugh all the way to the bank.
Marketers Who Excel, Excel
Here’s how most companies run their marketing strategies when their teams lack data skills: brainstorm campaigns, put money into the “best” ideas, and track shiny metrics on their dashboards like impressions, clicks, or the ever-reliable ‘likes’. At the end of the quarter, everyone gathers around to report how “well” things went, with little understanding of how (or if) those numbers drove actual revenue.
Now marketers with data skills operate differently. They understand how to:
- Deal with the growing volume of data effectively
- Prioritize campaigns strategically with limited budgets
- Get to the root of the problem and target solutions with precision
- Experiment and adjust on the fly
- Influence profitable decision-making
They don’t just track clicks; they analyze why people clicked and what happened next. They map entire customer journeys, identify bottlenecks, and optimize campaigns based on real-world outcomes, not guesses. And they can use their insights to compel stakeholders to revenue-building action.
Why Most Marketing Teams Fall Behind
Many marketing teams stick to their comfort zones, relying on intuition and outdated playbooks. They tell themselves that creativity and gut instinct are enough, avoiding data because it feels too technical or intimidating, or it tells them something unhelpful.
But ignoring data isn’t staying “creative”; it’s staying uninformed.
Even worse, teams without data skills often misinterpret the numbers they do have. Vanity metrics like “views” and “impressions” are easy to inflate and celebrate but rarely translate into revenue.
Data skills bridge that gap, turning meaningless figures into actionable insights.
The Million-Dollar Difference – An Example
Let’s say a marketing team wants to launch a new campaign targeting small business owners. Without data skills, they go broad – focusing on generic channels like Facebook ads and LinkedIn posts.
The result? A lot of ad spend, a few clicks, and zero measurable impact. (Sound familiar?)
Now consider a data-savvy team. They start by analyzing their CRM to identify their highest-value small business customers. They use clustering algorithms to segment this audience further, uncovering that most are in the retail industry and prefer Instagram over Facebook. They run A/B tests to optimize their creatives and track every lead through the sales funnel.
The outcome? Not just more clicks but measurable revenue. Millions, in fact, based on similar cases we’ve experienced before (See case studies under ‘marketing’ here).
Building a Data-Driven Marketing Team
Building this team is not about hiring more data scientists or buying fancy tools. It’s about fostering a culture where data is seen as an ally, not an obstacle. So here’s where you start:
- Upskill your marketers: Teach them the basics of data analysis, like interpreting funnel metrics, running A/B tests, and building dashboards.
- Embed data into decision-making: No campaign should launch without clear hypotheses, measurable KPIs, and post-campaign analysis.
- Break down silos: Marketing shouldn’t work in isolation. Collaborate with data teams to build a shared understanding of customer behavior.
The question now isn’t whether your marketing team needs data skills, it’s how much longer you can afford to wait before investing in them.
To simplify things, you can start with a data literacy assessment. Read about how you can assess your marketing team’s data skills here.
