Marketing - Art or Science?

Is marketing an art or a science? The answer is yes. Marketing is both - an art and a science. Enjoy this point and counter point about the art and science of marketing. Use the strengths of both arguments to better understand and improve your marketing. 

Marketing Science

Marketing is a science because marketing is about understanding and influencing behaviors. Psychology, the science of behaviors, studies how people react to certain stimuli in predictable ways. This is similar to Newton's' third law - cause and effect. For every marketing action there is a reaction. The science is in anticipating the reactions to your actions. 

Marketing Art

Marketing is an art because marketing is about appreciating the nuances of human behaviors. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is art. 

Marketing Science

Marketing is a science because marketing is about measuring and analyzing the numbers. How many prospects do you reach? How many people read your message? How many do you convert to buyers? How much do they spend? How many buy again? These are mathematical questions and answers and important to the success of your marketing. Math and accounting are important sciences to your business. 

Marketing Art

Marketing is art because marketing is about creating a demand for your product. Some of that demand is immediate and some of it is in the future. You can try to use science to predict the future part but you might pick a number based on art. There is always an unknown aspect that we attribute to art. 

Marketing Science

Marketing is a science because the most common question is "How much money should I spend on marketing?" The business owner and the accountants want the answer to this question. It's a good question but the more important question is, "What return can you expect from your marketing investment?" That's an important question and it is measurable like science. 

Marketing Art

Marketing is an art because there is the issue of branding which is difficult to measure. To generate a good return on your marketing investment requires a creative approach. That means that you need to apply the art of marketing. That is difficult to measure but it is necessary. 

Of course the argument of science versus art could go on. Is it art? Is it science? 

I believe that many marketers try to portray marketing as art when they can't measure their results. Hence they give up responsibility for their marketing programs. They suggest that marketing is all chance. Many self-declared branding experts talk about the art of branding and refuse to face the science of measurement. Don't be fooled by that hocus pocus. 

I believe that marketing is a science that should draw upon the art. Never let art dictate the direction of your marketing. Use science to determine major decisions and use the art for the nuances. 

Is marketing a science or art? I believe that it is both art and science. Most importantly the science should lead and measure; the art should inspire and create. 

That is the art and science of marketing. 

There are two sides to marketing, art and science. Traditionally, marketing was all about the creative process, the art. And I love the art—the hip commercials, the comedy, the animated graphics.

But what about the analytics, and the science? Here are four things that could improve if marketing approached things from a science-first perspective:

1. Better communications from brand marketing. This means communications that are relevant at the point of need. It means less contact, less spam and noise, and messages that are anticipated and highly personalized. How do we achieve this? One way is through the use of analytics. For example, analytical methods like optimization help marketers decrease marketing waste while optimizing budgets, processes, and return on investment. Marketing often gets tagged as having a lot of “waste”—but streamlining operations and processes while saving the company money, and even pulling in additional revenue, will always be a win for marketing.
2. Consistent brand communications across all channels, points in time, departments and devices. At this point in time, organizations have no excuse for contacting a consumer randomly from different parts of the organization with the same marketing or service message. Companies should have a central “brain” or “hub” from where all messages, regardless of channel, flow out to consumers. If I declined to join the hotel vacation club when I checked into your hotel don’t call me the next week at my home and offer it again. Brands are very good at the creative but haven’t mastered ensuring the message is in context, appropriate, anticipated and personalized to a consumer’s needs.
3. Marketing working better with other departments. A marketer with numbers and results is a very powerful thing. Marketing departments want to be seen as a profit center rather than a cost center. If a marketing department can prove the value of the programs they execute using analytics, it is hard to question their efficacy. What better way to bridge the gap between marketing and sales than to provide the sales team with prospects and leads that are fully qualified through the use of analytics.A marketer that knows what both prospects and clients truly need can address the most important issues up front, and not just speak to trends in the marketplace. Marketing would be very valuable to IT and tech support departments if they could anticipate customers’ pain points and identify solutions. And, a marketing department that can collect data, analyze it, and send it upstream through product management to R&D for use in future product development would be invaluable.
4. M. arketing would have the ability to answer the “why.” As marketers, one of our main tasks is to create messaging that positions the products and services we provide within the marketplace. Some brands are very good at creating this messaging, and other have problems making their messaging resonate. Data can help marketers move beyond the “what we do” and “how we do it” to the why we do what we do. As Simon Sinek stated in his TED talk, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. Analytics give organizations the data to understand everything leading up to the why so when they deliver, it resonates more fully for audiences. Delivering the why in your marketing messages and positioning has proven to increase sales, revenues, and profits—just ask Apple.