The past decade has seen great leaps in the capability to target and measure marketing efforts. Today’s top marketers must understand quantitative marketing, but they should not “genuflect before the false god of measurement,” says Romi Mahajan, founder of KKM Group, a boutique marketing and strategy advisory firm.
The introduction of elaborate digital marketing technology has resulted in an overwhelming rise of measurement-based marketing. “At some level, this makes sense. If technology allows marketing to be more relevant, effective, and timely, why not use the tools of modernity in the service of the outcomes we desire? Sensible, indeed, but only at the surface,” Mahajan states in a blog post for Socedo, a company whose mission, oddly enough, is to help B2B businesses better engage and communicate with customers by utilizing intent data from the social web.
“My take is that marketing is not reducible to mathematics. While deep knowledge of data, quantitative methods, and measurement techniques are very important, when they replace artistic flair and gut-level decision-making, marketing becomes tepid and monochromatic,” Mahajan says.
“The desire for measurement forces the marketer into a narrow path that doesn’t allow him to take advantage of the whole spectrum of the marketing mix. If a marketer develops a campaign with only measurement in mind, then he’ll default to the channels that are eminently measurable and avoid channels that are more gray.”
Adopt technology, but don’t get enamored by it, Mahajan adds. “A marketer should strive to find a balance between the realms of science and art. Be enamored with progress.”
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