Marketers Dying By A Thousand Data Points

Data tells a story about the past, and helps us understand what we can expect in the future. But just like life, data has no guarantees. Even with all the data points and information in the world, it takes an experienced mind to transform insight into meaningful action.

Marketers need to fill the gap between the past and the future, and find those moments that capture the greatest number of conversions, conversations, and connections. This happens over, and over, and over again. Data, innovations, information – they’re only part of the story. Marketers must spin data into gold, and, as a recent PandoDaily story pointed out, not all marketers are capable of doing so.

PandoDaily calls attention to a recent Contently’s The State of Content Marketing Measurement report. Contently surveyed 302 marketers and found some depressing statistics: 91 percent of marketers surveyed were uncertain whether the content performance analytics they used were helpful.

That stings. For more than a decade, marketers have prided themselves on their data acumen. They’ve touted data as a way to prove ROI. This report shows that over 90 percent of marketers are unsure of data measuring one of the biggest marketing tools: Content. Unfortunately, we’re not surprised.

“Paralysis by analysis” is a fatal marketer disease. It’s a challenge we’ve all faced for years. It’s why so many companies build customer dashboards and analysis toolsets. All these new tools have yet to marry to strong interpretive techniques that clear away the data ‘cobwebs’ and get to what matters: the next action.