Analysts and data scientists are in high demand in all
industries and departments but especially in digital marketing.
The abundance of online customer data has
grown exponentially over the past decade making it
no longer optional
for marketing teams to track, access, and analyze data to make
informed marketing decisions for their respective businesses.
Why is the analyst skill set so in demand for marketers? As
Eric Bryn, Digital Analyst and Adjunct Professor, told
Master’s
in Data Science, “A marketing analyst will understand consumer expectations
and use this understanding to work with a data science team to drive better
product development, campaign management, and advertising messaging strategies.
The more targeted these strategies are for consumers, the more profitable
companies can become.”
As consumers we
have flooded the internet world with raw data and now businesses need to
utilize that data to sell their products to us.
Which is why they need analysts.
Now most employers who are looking to hire a marketing
analyst are more interested in candidates who have a bachelor’s degree in
statistics or computer science than someone who had a non-STEM degree in
marketing. This has been proven evident
even in the tech company that I currently work for. We were looking for an entry level marketing
analyst and the hiring manager said, “we need someone who is closer to an
engineer, who can understand large amounts of data and how to navigate through
it, I can teach them the marketing stuff.”
This shows a very different strategy and trend for marketing departments
than what we may have heard from a marketing manager 10 years ago.
While the marketing analyst provides a huge asset to the
department, every marketing department needs a data scientist.
With the rise of technology, data is power in
business.
The data scientist on your
team will be able to tell you when is the best time to post a Facebook ad to
sell makeup to young professional women.
As
Marketing
Land points out, a fresh-out-of-college data scientist can make a better
decision when to post your ad because the data scientists have access to every
campaign you have run and the corresponding results along with the data that is
out there on the “interwebs.”
People
aren’t turning to the most tenured marketer on the team for this type of
decision, they are turning to the folks with the data.
Having a data scientist on your marketing team
is going to give you an advantage to help rise over competitors and make
smarter decisions as to where to spend your marketing dollars.
In my personal experience from working in a technology
company and in talent acquisition, every department can benefit from having a
data scientist and analyst on their team.
I have seen the rise of this first hand from our sales department,
business development, and even HR department adding on analysts or data
scientists dedicated to their department.
Data science is the most in demand skill set in marketing
and in all industries.
As the
American
Marketing Association cited, Gartner and McKinsey put out reports that say
there will be between 100,000 and 190,000 more data science jobs than there are
data scientists.
These numbers paint a
real picture that many hiring managers will struggle to hire this skill set.
Companies should look at what is that is
expected of data scientists and what is that makes one great and start putting
together their hiring strategy to attract this talent.
When hiring a for a marketing department we expect them to
be able to manage the big data to generate insights as to how to run our
marketing efforts. These people need to
be statisticians, part computer scientists, be able to work with people and
understand/communicate the larger picture of the business; they’re not there to
only identify insights but also identify and solve problems in the business. No
wonder they’re in such high demand…
