At Arktic Fox we are passionate about lifting knowledge within the industry – which is why we have launched a new video series called Data Culture Matters.
Recent research from our Marketing State of Play report found that 75% of marketing teams are looking to embed a data driven culture. However with two thirds of leaders citing that data literacy within their teams is low – the task isn’t an easy one.
Over a series of episodes, the series will explore how leading marketing and analytics professionals have successfully built and embedded data driven cultures within their teams and more importantly what they learnt along the way.
Who’s today’s guest?
On this week’s episode, Nathan McEwan- General Manager Market Development of Powershop joins us as he discusses his 20+ years of experience in the industry.
With deep expertise in digital and data, Nathan has helped an array of services and retail brands to evolve in times of change and embrace a data driven approach.
Key take outs from the interview
So what did we learn from our sit down with Nathan?
Nathan expressed just why he feels that data and insight are so vital for marketers, in a modern marketing world? His believe is that “the only way to really demonstrate business value is through measurement and optimisation. But equally that “stakeholders really rally around marketing ideas that have a rich foundation of data and insights and are more likely to garner support and advocation for programs and initiatives, which leads to investment.”
Building a data driven culture isn’t easy or linear, so we wanted to understand how Nathan approaches and tackles this kind of task. He argues that, ‘Making data visible and accessible really is one of the first key steps to help embed a data driven culture.’ He also provides some sage advice when it comes to tackling the challenge itself of building a data driven culture “carve off activity in bite sized chunks rather than trying to tackle all at once”.
So how does Nathan recommend we make data more visible? Rather than just making the data strategy a piece of paper and a plan on its own - weave it into the business strategy, customer or marketing strategy and showcase it at different forums. This usually gets stakeholders pretty excited as well!’
When discussing challenges, Nathan expressed the issue of making assumptions. He shared a particular example where he sold in a strategy without doing validation on what assets were available – which ended up being wrong. Instead, he recommends you to create a validation stream to ensure your assumptions are tested as a wrong assumption can call into questions ones credibility.
Want to get involved?
Led and embedded a data culture within marketing teams or at a broader organisation level and keen to share your insights with the market? Drop us a line at hello@arkticfox.io to discuss being involved in the series.