Marketing Artists vs Marketing Scientists [Domino Idea]

This is a “domino idea.” Sam Woods coined the term, Pardot made the infographic, and I’m just reblogging to spread the love.

Before you read further, check out this infographic that Pardot has freely shared for embedding:

Marketing Artists vs. Marketing Scientists [INFOGRAPHIC] - Pardot Infographic

At AccelerEyes, we’ve struggled with balancing the artist (or hunch-based) side of our business with the scientist (or data-driven) side. Both are needed. Oftentimes data is expensive to collect and analyze and yields unactionable information. Likewise, hunches are not good at refining and improving operations.

To improve the “artist” side, there is nothing as effective as immersing oneself in customer development. Asking smart questions of many customers and leads will greatly help refine intuition and hunches.

To improve the “scientist” side, spending time to determine which metrics are actually worth collecting and analyzing is key. You can waste all day every day wallowing in data. But with a good filter, you can narrow efforts down to find those metrics that actually have a chance to become actionable.

The technical and high-performance computing market could really benefit from better marketing, both on the artist side as well as the scientist side. I’ve been really impressed with NVIDIA’s marketing approach. Their background in consumer products really brings a refreshing spice to the market.

How do you balance your marketing artistry with your marketing science? Do you think businesses should be balanced, or do you argue for skew towards one of the two sides?