It’s one thing to know how I want to spend my income-generating time, but quite another to articulate this to anyone, let alone convincingly to prospective clients. I don’t mind admitting that it’s taken investments with a coach and a copywriter to get here.
Obviously, time helps. Now in my second year of business, no part of my offer is theoretical, and I have had prospects and clients in all areas. Here is a bit more background to bring the information on my website to life:
Marketing Mix Modelling
You may have heard of this advanced analysis approach if you are in marketing, finance or are involved in managing business budgets. No? In a nutshell, it is a data-driven approach that quantifies the return on investment of your marketing activities and uses that information to help you develop a more effective and efficient marketing plan.
Cool, huh? I think so. After graduating just before the new millennium, I spent about 14 of my 18 years in corporate roles either undertaking, managing or leading marketing mix modelling projects. That equates to hundreds of brands, across most major categories in about 30 countries. It’s a no-brainer that I still do it with all that experience.
There are two ways that I can help. Sometimes, analytics teams who provide this service to their clients hire me as an interim additional resource for their team. Having worked at all levels in these sorts of teams myself, I can add value quickly because many aspects of the way these teams operate, and the challenges faced are familiar.
I also work directly with clients to provide a full service, from project design to the delivery of recommendations to enable smarter decision-making based on data-driven evidence. If that sounds straightforward, it’s meant to – there’s nothing mystical or purely scientific about marketing mix modelling.
It’s just a tool. Like a chainsaw - powerful in the right hands and dangerous in inexperienced ones. I think that that the skills most valuable when applying marketing mix modelling are asking the right questions, acute attention to detail and an ability to make judgement calls based on business sense and not only statistics.
If you already know a bit about the approach, perhaps check out my LinkedIn article aimed at an audience who already has some knowledge. If not, I’ve also written a no-nonsense blog explaining the fundamentals of the technique. And, of course, there’s more on my current marketing mix modelling service on my website.
Research and Analysis
You may have concluded that marketing mix modelling isn’t for you but are wondering whether someone with those sorts of skills and experience can still be useful to answer marketing or other types of business questions. You’re right, they are.
Marketing mix modelling practitioners have a strong grounding in understanding and working with multiple data sources. Data analysis is also second nature, since modelling is essentially a quantification of relationships grounded in theory and observed in data.
Besides, it’s not always possible or necessary to use an analysis approach that is as investment intensive as marketing mix modelling, but that doesn’t equate to these alternatives being lightweight. Because you still need to drive real business decisions.
That’s why my research and analysis services are set out like a menu. To give you an idea of the types of questions that I’m experienced in tackling. You’ll notice that these are not package products though, that’s not my thing at all. Feel free to order off-menu.
Check out this piece I wrote about the automotive sector, where I have done a lot of work that would be classified as research and analysis if I were to do it again now. Big business decisions and not a marketing mix model in sight.
Freelance Partnerships
You may own or work in a small agency without a dedicated data or analysis function. Or operate a collective that brings together teams of freelancers for specific projects. Or another single-person business who cannot service your client for whatever reason.
I’ve worked in all these ways, sometimes as part of the team or white labelling in the background. What matters more to me is that the work is interesting and worthwhile, not whether anyone knows that I worked on it. Not surprising for an introvert really.
If you’ve worked in this way before you’re likely to take the lead. You’ll know what you need and will have identified me as someone who can potentially deliver. Marketing mix modelling, obviously. But I’ve also supported on a pitch, consulted on a model and delivered on a social listening brief, from data collation to presentation.
But perhaps you haven’t taken this step before? Find out how a freelance partnership could benefit you. I draw on 20 years of team, project and stakeholder management deliver much more than just numbers. Unless that’s all you want, of course.
Not marketing? Probably not a problem
It’s expected, especially while my business is still young, that a lot of the work that I undertake for clients is in the marketing field. It’s where most of my knowledge is, after all. Yet, the skills that I have are highly transferable and I also like learning new things.
Asking the right questions, acute attention to detail and an ability to make judgement calls based on business sense. Add to that my passion for anything data-related, being a whizz with a spreadsheet and being OK with words (for a numbers-person).
I’ve written short form copy for an entrepreneur because I am a subject matter expert. I’ve helped a recruiter calibrate the difficulty of a skills assessment because I’m a power use of that software. Analysed deprivation data to pull out key trends. Turned a pen & paper resource planner into a semi-automatic spreadsheet. You get the picture. Try me.
Pulling it all together
Make data-driven decisions that you can count on. Research, analysis and modelling services for pragmatic change-makers.
If you recognise yourself and like the sound of me give me a call or drop me a message.