How Anyone Can Become a Marketing Scientist

Today, the best marketers are scientists. They test. They research and analyze. They apply frameworks. They look to better understand customers and the future. Marketing is an applied behavioral science, seeking to develop practical methods to bring better products to market and persuade customers to adopt them. 

Science improves all aspects of marketing.

Years ago, marketing’s identity was art. As one CMO put it, “we were the people who chose the napkin color”. Although art is still important, it is no longer the foundation of the profession. Art and science work together. Effective design is not “intuitive” in the sense that it is made-up or random.  Design can be studied, has principles, can be scientifically tested and improved. 

Marketing has also tried to fit into sales’ shoes or even IT. While there are aspects of marketing that involve sales and technology, marketing is much more. Marketing science improves sales’ accountability and leverages technology’s tools. 

What does it take to be a marketing scientist?

The marketing scientist role isn’t limited to data scientists. Marketing science is open to anyone who applies these attributes to their work:

A Scientific Terrain: Seek to better understand customers and the future. Marketing is an applied behavioral science, working to develop practical ways to bring better products to market and persuade customers to acquire and adopt them.

A Scientific Approach: Acquire and apply new knowledge in a systematic way. Use rigorous methods that hold you accountable. Outcomes and insights must be shared, reviewed, repeated, and corrected.

A Scientific Perspective: A marketing scientist is someone who demonstrates a curiosity, an openness, a willingness to observe and experiment, and a readiness to adapt. 

The Marketing Scientist’s Terrain

Marketing’s scientific turf is the complex, unpredictable world of people – primarily customers, but also the broader social world. Marketing scientists study how to make people happy in ways that will encourage them to buy and use products. What process do humans go through to expend resources to get the things we need and value? How will this process change? Said one marketing leader, "Customer journeys are messy. They start in unexpected places, take detours, speed up and slow down. And like a road trip, they have drivers and the driver is in charge."

The Marketing Scientist’s Approach

The marketing scientist follows the scientific method:

1.     Ask questions: What you are doing now? What’s not working or could work better? What would happen if we did this? How can I ask better questions?

2.     Gather information Conduct research. Investigate what others are doing. Obtain data – both quantitative and qualitative.

3.     Form a hypothesis: Take an educated guess about what will happen. Ensure that your hypothesis can be tested and isn’t just imaginary.

4.     Test with experiments: Design experiments thoughtfully. A poorly designed experiment delivers misleading results. Eliminate variables where you can. Repeat with variations. 

5.     Analyze and draw conclusions: Keep an open mind even when results twist your expectations into pretzels. Ask what am I learning? 

6.     Compare results with your hypothesis: Does it match? Adapt your hypothesis and your experiments in response. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

7.     Communicate and discuss results: Peer review is an important part of science. Others see things you do not. Don’t shut down alternative ideas and interpretations.

The Marketing Scientist’s Perspective

Curious, open, truth-seeking supports success in the characteristic uncertainty in marketing’s terrain. A culture of experimentation permits, even encourages, failure if you learn from of your experience. Scientific perspective also helps avoid damaging biases, such as the confirmation bias. We need an approach that challenges our natural tendency to pay attention and give more credence to information that confirms what we already believe. We discount or reject information that opposes those beliefs. One marketing leader was adamant that his team provided the right kinds of leads to the sales team. He was blind to how he cherry-picked metrics that “proved” this result and this bias stood in the way of finding demand methods that worked.

Becoming a marketing scientist is immediately accessible to every marketer. Science is learnable.