If you could split marketing into two philosophies, one would entail the art of marketing while the other would entail the science of marketing.
The art of marketing is all the right-brained creativity that goes into a marketing program. These marketers are focused on emotions, visuals, and telling stories.
OmmWriter, Balsamiq, and Storyteller are some of the tools in their toolkit.
Outside of using these tools, these marketers can be found trying their hand at design, practicing their copy skills, and reading Seth Godin.
The science of marketing is the data and analytics side. This is the left-brained, logical side of marketing. These types of marketers love analytics, testing, and measuring. You’ll often find these types of marketers deep into tools like KISSmetrics, Google Analytics, and their preferred A/B testing tool.
When they’re not using one of these tools, you’ll find them nerding out about data and growth with a data scientist, talking shop with their growth hacker buddies, and reading FiveThirtyEight.
If you’ve found someone who can combine both of these and do them exceptionally well, you’ve found yourself a great marketer. If you can get two of these types of marketers in your company, you’ve got the core of a great marketing team.
The key is to strike a balance. If you focus too much on the science, your website and marketing will become robotic. Your brand image will be changing the second you get a small hint that one branding message may convert better than the other.
Similarly, favoring the art too much means that you won’t know what’s actually resonating because you’re not measuring. At the end of the day marketing is about growing companies.
To do this, you’ll need a range of skill sets within your marketing team.
