Why can’t I just hire an analyst for my customer analytics?

Can’t I just use the consulting money to hire an analyst to do my customer analytics?

When marketers face the investment in consulting to help with database marketing, a frequent question is, “why must we spending all that money on a one-time analysis from people who are not even in our industry?  Why not just hire an analyst instead?”

The decision whether or not to hire a consulting firm or a permanent analyst is a significant one; the answer can have dramatic impact on the timeliness and ROI of your analytic effort.

Let’s assume that your objectives are to find specific insights that you can use to improve targeting/response/conversion in next quarter’s direct-to-customer marketing programs.

If these are your objectives, then you need to:

1. Combine, understand and manipulate “big data” from multiple sources
2. Analyze that data to identify insights that can be used in marketing in the short term.
3. Determine how to use those findings with the technology you have available in our company

If that is true, then you need a combination of a data warehouse architect, an experienced database marketing analyst and a marketing campaign manager skilled in digital, direct and social media marketing.  And you need all those people to have experience working together over years. That is why you hire a consulting firm.

Consistently, our clients face challenges in getting critical analysis done quickly and consistently and having that work be applied in the technology the company has on hand.  Once the results have been achieved, many of our clients leverage internal staff for part or all of the process — but when time is of the essence, and you need to make sure that you achieve strong, meaningful results in the short, term, experienced consultants can provide you with a path that minimizes risk and maximizes potential impact.

Don’t be “penny-wise and pound foolish.”  Use experience where experience matters the most, when the risk is greatest and timing is critical.  Then you won’t be sitting around to trying to explain why nothing has happened, in a year from now.

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