INBOX INSIGHTS, July 28, 2021: Change Failures, Institutional Marketing Knowledge Loss, Public Speaking - Trust Insights Marketing Analytics Consulting

INBOX INSIGHTS: Change Failures, Institutional Marketing Knowledge Loss, Public Speaking (7/28)

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Resistance to Change

Agile. Nimble. Flexible. Proactive. Adaptive.

These are all ways that we ideally want to be able to describe ourselves, our teams, and our companies.

But the truth is, most of us aren’t any of those things. We’re rigid. We like predictability and consistency. We create plans but have a hard time when those plans change or don’t happen as we think they should.

People are at the core of any change management project and are the number one barrier to success. So how do we fix this? By understanding the people needed to make the change and become agile, nimble, flexible, proactive, and adaptive.

Let’s take Google Analytics as an example. One of the services that Trust Insights provides is what we call an audit. Essentially, we’ll go into your Google Analytics account and make sure all of the right buttons and switches are pushed.

Sounds simple, yes? (insert sound of obnoxious buzzer here)

Where do we run into resistance to change?

With access. Who set up the account? Do they still work there? Was it an outside agency or contractor that never gave you admin access to your own assets?

How do you solve this problem? With governance. If you have a living document of who has access to what, that you update once a quarter, you have a better chance of not getting locked out of your own systems.

With consensus. Depending on how large your organization is, you may have a lot of team that are reliant on the data that comes out of Google Analytics. This means that every single person that is reliant on that data has their own agenda.

How do you solve this problem? When starting any project, make sure you are factoring in all of the people that will be affected. You can accomplish this with persona statements and requirements gathering.

With communication. All too often, change tries to happen in a vacuum and then is rolled out to a large set of people. I’m sure as you’re reading this you’re thinking of times when that has happened to you. You’re caught off guard and are sure how you are directly impacted.

How do you solve this problem? Within reason, bring people on early. Get feedback. Assign responsibilities so that people feel invested but are also accountable for the success.

Unless you are living in complete isolation and have managed to find a profession that doesn’t involve teams, contractors, customers, or anyone else – change is hard because the more people that are involved, the more likely you’ll have failure points.

Do you have questions about change, managing people, of Google Analytics? Join our free slack group and connect with our community.

Until next time,

– Katie Robbert, CEO

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In this episode of In-Ear Insights, Katie and Chris tackle the loss of institutional knowledge and how we could prevent it. If you’ve ever been at a conference over the span of a few years, you’ve heard the same questions come up during Q&A over and over again. Why? Because companies aren’t doing a good job of passing along institutional knowledge. Tune in to find out how to mitigate this problem.

Watch/listen to this episode of In-Ear Insights here »

Last week on So What? The Marketing Analytics and Insights Live Show, we looked at what to do as public speaking ramps up and live, in-person events slowly resume. How do you get your speaking career back on track after 18 months of Zoom calls?

Watch/listen to this episode of So What? here »

This Thursday at 1 PM Eastern, we’ll be tackling content marketing analytics basics. Are you following our YouTube channel? If not, click/tap here to follow us!

Need a reminder?

Data Diaries - Interesting Data We Found

In this week’s Data Diaries, we answer a question asked in the Content Marketing Slack: when will all things pumpkin spice be of interest to audiences?

What we’re looking at here is a predictive forecast of when people will be searching for pumpkin spice in general and the eponymous pumpkin spice latte in the next few months. We see the first inflection point for the upward trend in a couple of weeks, the week of August 8, at point 1. Search interest will likely peak overall for 2021 the week of August 29th (point 2), with a second smaller peak the week of October 3 (point 3), and then demand will fall off fully the week of November 21 (point 4).

What’s the point? Obviously, if you work in any kind of hospitality industry, there’s a direct impact to your business. You’ll want to get foods and beverages with pumpkin spice ingredients ready for demand when it surges.

More broadly, this is an example of how we marketers should be using data. At the least, we can all update and freshen up our various pumpkin spice memes, blog posts, etc. for the coming consumer interest, regardless of whether we’re B2B or B2C. I need to update our blog post on pumpkin spice recipe data.

And even bigger picture, we know that supply chains are still in a great deal of turmoil. So, are there vulnerabilities in the pumpkin spice supply chain that we could anticipate and proactively plan for? Whether it’s as consumers (stock up on pumpkin spice latte ingredients before the rush if you want to make yours at home) or businesses, if we know there are already shortages or supply chain fractures before the peak season, those shortages will be worse. Again, as marketers, we could be planning content around potential pumpkin spice shortages if we find that some ingredients are in short supply.

Any data that is of broad interest to the population can be used for content marketing, for social media marketing, for email marketing. It’s just a question of whether we’ve planned ahead for potential problems and we’re ready to go, or whether we’re caught unawares and we’re scrambling to react, rather than being prepared.

Methodology: Trust Insights extracted 5 years of search data around pumpkin spice and pumpkin spice lattes, then used machine learning software to forecast forward for the remainder of CY 2021. The timeframe of the data is January 1, 2016 – July 27, 2021. The date of study is July 28, 2021. Trust Insights is the sole sponsor of the study and neither gave nor received compensation for data used, beyond applicable service fees to software vendors, and declares no competing interests.

Here’s some of our content from recent days that you might have missed.

Get skilled up with an assortment of our free, on-demand classes.

This is a roundup of the best content you and others have written and shared in the last week.

Data Science and AI

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Content Marketing

Are you a member of our free Slack group, Analytics for Marketers? Join 1900+ like-minded marketers who care about data and measuring their success. Membership is free – join today. Members also receive sneak peeks of upcoming data, credible third-party studies we find and like, and much more. Join today!

Are you happy with the answers you’re getting out of Google Analytics today?
Are you confident in the decisions you’re making from Google Analytics?
Are you secure in the knowledge that you’re set up properly to benefit from Google Analytics 4?

If you answered no to any of the questions above, let’s take some time to get your analytics in shape. Google Analytics 4 is the analytics software of the future. Google has made no bones about the fact that anything new they develop will be in GA4 only. To take advantage of the new features, you need to get your house in order now.

So we’re offering you a Google Analytics 4 bootcamp. We’ll help you:

Get your existing Google Analytics account in shape with proper goals, tracking cleanup, and best practices
Identify key issues that will block your ability to use Google Analytics 4 and help resolve them
Help set an analytics strategy for this that focuses on answers, decisions, and growth rather than pouring more data in your inbox
Build a migration plan for Google Analytics 4, including Google Tag Manager and Google Data Studio

Click here to order a Google Analytics bootcamp »

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Where can you find us in person?

MAICON, September 2021, virtual
MarTech Conference, September 2021, virtual
Content Marketing World, September 2021, Cleveland, OH
MarketingProfs B2B Forum, October 2021, virtual

Going to a conference we should know about? Reach out!

Want some private training at your company? Ask us!

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