Safety in numbers…

How solid are your math skills? How about statistics? Increasingly, marketers do their best work, not with creative and copy, but with spreadsheets and segments. Mike Moran – who you should read if you’re not already – provides the case of E-Loan’s Imran Khan and his rise from Director of Search Marketing in 2003 to Chief Marketing Officer today, largely based on his analytics skills.

As another case in point of how numbers lead the way, note Ben McConnell’s writings about record sales from the “American Idol” kids and influence of word of mouth marketing over at Church of the Customer blog. What struck me most was less about the articles and much more about the dissection of Ben’s numbers among the commenters. Tom Snyder’s comment on the first item in particular shows a clear understanding both of the numbers and of the Long Tail.

Compete also shows some great stats regarding where people spend their time online (thanks to the Freakonomics gang for the original link). Again, while the data itself is fascinating, some particularly insightful comments leap out and show that the smartest marketers in the room are the ones with the calculator instead of the copy.

Does this mean that creative no longer has a place in the new marketing space? Sam Decker – another must read – doesn’t think so, at least not completely. And neither do I. At least not completely. But if I were going to miss on one side of this, I’d bet on the folks with the numbers on their side.