The way you go about it is important, and this has led to the creation of several terms.
What should you do?
Do you use data to make business decisions, or does data help you make decisions?
In simpler terms, does data drive or guide your business decisions?
Although the differences between these buzzwords are subtle, each approach is different and will change your company’s relationship with data.
It may be more objective to take a data-driven strategy, where the data is the driving force behind everything you do. However, you could miss the big picture.
On the other side, if you go all-in with the data-informed strategy and allow data to guide business decisions, your data will be too flexible.
Imagine what could happen if data is cherry-picked based on your preconceived notions.
Do you think both approaches are ineffective and that they should be discarded?
Not quite. Keep reading to learn why.
We encourage companies to use all the stats they have available when making business decisions.
The way you go about it is important, and this has led to the creation of several terms.
What should you do?
Do you use data to make business decisions, or does data help you make decisions?
In simpler terms, does data drive or guide your business decisions?
Although the differences between these buzzwords are subtle, each approach is different and will change your company’s relationship with data.
It may be more objective to take a data-driven strategy, where the data is the driving force behind everything you do. However, you could miss the big picture.
On the other side, if you go all-in with the data-informed strategy and allow data to guide business decisions, your data will be too flexible.
Imagine what could happen if data is cherry-picked based on your preconceived notions.
Do you think both approaches are ineffective and that they should be discarded?
Not quite. Keep reading to learn why.
What is Data-Driven?
What is Data-Informed?
Data-Informed or Data-Driven? Which is the best option?
What is the best approach for your business?
Bonus topic: Meet the Data-Inspired Approach
Wrap-up: Use all Data Mindsets according to Specific Circumstances, Expectations, and Situations.
What is Data-Driven?
We would be relying on data all the time if we adopted a data-driven marketing strategy.
In order to put it another way, our entire business strategy is dependent on how we interpret the data available.
This is a great way to harness data and get unique information about your customers.
As you may have already guessed, data-driven approaches do not consider personal experience.
The focus is on facts and data, with the latter having the final word.
Here is a typical example. We have two copies of ads A and B.
We think that ad A is better and will produce better results. Instead of running ad B, we will A/B-test both versions.
Ad B has a lower ( Customer Acquisition cost ) than ad A.
But we were fairly certain that ad B was better. We are data-driven, so it is a real shame we have to use the ad B.
What do we mean by that?
The benefits of a data-driven approach
This is how we see it.
Data-driven decision-making prevents bias because it removes the decision-making process from our hands.
It tells us exactly what to do, and we follow it without our gut instincts.
We would also not have to deal with the subtleties of decision-making, which is something that some businesses enjoy.
In continuation of the first point, when we are not in control of decisions made by others, it is easier to fight back against those who have agendas.
Who doesn’t enjoy defending a position with hard, cold facts and figures?
A data-driven strategy can also help identify trends that may indicate future problems.
Data can be used to identify potential problems rather than simply reacting.
Cons of a data-driven approach
If we only focus on data when making decisions, we may miss the big picture.
A major issue with the data-driven method is that it may rely on data that is not statistically significant.
It will certainly prevent us from making informed decisions.
If we truly want to be data-driven, we need to collect large amounts of data over a long period in order to represent market conditions accurately.