Twitter would not have been included!

It’s a cynical view, but we’ve all been around long enough to witness that whenever massive change takes place there are a whole bunch of people who – as authoritative on the subject as they might be – take on a prophesier role. They give us predictions without fact.

Car companies, who employ great experience combined with enormous application of consumer research and overseas case studies, consistently get new model volumes wrong. FMCG companies with consumer research budgets the size of some country’s GDP get new products wrong. The tombstones of good and credible companies applying proper business models to forecasting are too numerous to mention. Think of an example within your own company? Bet you can. These examples are typical of what goes on in marketing. With great intentions, judicious and rigorous evaluation of data, we get it wrong.

And yet, with great enthusiasm, some tend to readily adopt whoever’s blue sky view on what an online strategy for a business should be. Worse still, they take a cue garnered from his or her presentation at a conference.

The following chart perfectly illustrates our point. This is the history of Twitter. For over a year it remained – probably one of a thousand ‘cute’ online applications. Then in early 2009 it started to move (as only some do), and in early/mid 2009 it exhibited a really meaningful trend. No‐one at the outset could have predicted the tipping point let alone where it will end up, nor certainly, what might arise as its successor.

One definition  of marketing that’s widely accepted is: ‘understanding, anticipating and influencing a consumer’s response to a product offering’. Holding aside whether this is your perfect definition, we would all agree that the first and foremost aspect of marketing is about understanding your consumer.

And that’s where the online world offers a level of data unforeseen in the past, and at negligible cost!

We would have it that trend analysis of existing consumer’s online behaviour, to any degree (ok, to a detailed degree) is a far more stable foundation for determining an online strategy than any prophet’s view.

Think about it. Whatever position you are currently at with your online activity has been reached because a number of people within your company, who have great experience in your industry, people with good, credible intent, have got your online strategy up and running. It’s probably not 100% perfect. It never will be. But it is probably 60/70% ok.

So rather than throw out all that’s up and running and working to some degree, start with an in‐depth analysis of consumer behaviour. That is, how are consumers currently interacting with you online? The data is lurking in the background, it just has to be tapped.

Basing decisions on data (clarification: basing, not making) will never be an obsolete model for good marketing management.

Roger Stephens