Trusting your gut?

Most marketers in the US are trusting their gut to determine the marketing spends finds out a survey. And the importance of using data is growing. Hail marketers.

There is a growing awareness of the need to use data in decision-making. According to the Adobe survey, which was conducted by ResearchNow, 39% of respondents used consumer data and behavior more last year to shape their marketing strategies. A larger share – 45% – hope to rely more on these data in the coming year. What’s more, 76% of marketers agreed that they need to be more data-focused to succeed.

Not surprisingly, those respondents from companies with high digital spend (25% of their budgets) are more likely than those from companies with low digital spend.

There seems to be a consensus among marketers that they need to reinvent themselves to succeed, particularly as the vast majority believe that marketing is undergoing a revolution. But few of those who want to reinvent their role know how to go about doing so. Part of embracing a new approach to marketing also involves experimentation, and 54% of respondents believe that the ideal marketer should take more risks. That risk-taking extends to new technologies, but marketers were twice as likely to agree that they are more comfortable adopting new technologies once they become mainstream (65%) they they were to agree that they make use of new technology even before it’s proven (31%).

With that in mind, some 6 in 10 hope to try more new things (59%) and learn new skills (58%) in the coming 12 months, while half are looking to experiment more and test and evolve their marketing strategies. Perhaps most significantly, while only 29% took more risks last year, 45% hope to this year.

The online survey was conducted February 19-27, 2014 by ResearchNow among 1,004 US marketers. The results have a margin of error at the 95% confidence level, for the total sample, of +/-3.1%. Some 465 companies had high digital spend, while 153 had low digital spend.