Digital Marketing Agency | Manchester & London | Impact

Brilliant Digital Marketing, in Manchester, Cheshire, and London

The plural of anecdote is not data

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We LOVE data at Impact.

I mean, we properly love data. Frankly, if we could, we’d probably marry it.

But not everyone agrees.

Not everyone sees the value in data, or the power of evidence.

You see, for many, anecdotes are enough to support any argument or position they want.

You probably know some of them; they’re the ones that tell you to focus on “positive energy” instead of medicine.

They’re the ones that argue points because they “just know” they’re right, or because “it happened to me once!”.

People who confuse correlation with causation.

Presenting mere anecdotes to support your argument doesn’t prove your point, it weakens it.

And the same is true in marketing.

We have the tools and power to measure almost anything we do now, and produce cold, hard, data to guide us.

We can see at a glance which messages are working and which aren’t.

We can track the impact of campaigns across different media: online and offline; social media and PPC.

In short, we can learn – from data – how to market our businesses better. It’s an incredible resource.

So, next time someone tries to persuade you of something using anecdotes, ask them for the data to support it. If you’re simply given yet another anecdote, walk away.

Data. We LOVE it.

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David Trott

David has worked with countless UK charities, businesses, and schools - with a brilliant track record of helping them with their biggest challenges. David is the founder of the Impact group - including Impact Charity Advisors, Impact Business Advisors, and Impact Education Support.