In this week’s episode, Katie and Chris look at the use of predictive analytics to forecast trends and learn when to put marketing campaigns into market. They examine some of the data around pumpkin spice season as well as other seasonal trends. Ever wonder when the best time is to put a seasonal campaign into market? Tuen in to find out!

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In this week’s episode, it is August 2022, as we record this episode, and one of the most polarizing search trends is just getting kicked off.

And that search trend is people talking about the pumpkin spice latte and all things pumpkin spice, one of the more amusing data dives that we do every single year.

And today, what we wanted to talk about was, how do you leverage seasonal data like this particularly using predictive analytics, especially if you run the risk of, of potentially being late.

So before we dive in, I wanted to show you quickly what we see in our data using forecasting software using predictive analytics software.

For a basket of terms around pumpkin spice.

Here, we see all of the major terms and this is logarithmically scaled.

So we see pumpkin spice is that the top term there, Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe pumpkin spice cream, if I simplify it into one line, right now, August 7, the week of August 7, the search is just beginning next week, the August 14, your search volume almost doubles and so on, so forth, until you get to August 28.

And September 4, those weeks are when pumpkin spice fever is at its highest.

And it doesn’t drop off until really December, when it goes back to normal.

So Katie, when you see data like this trends that are forecast like this, what should marketers be thinking about? And for those folks who are in say, the food beverage industry? Is it too late? Or have they got some time to scramble?

You know, when I look at this, the first thing that occurs to me is Is it a regional thing? So for example, pumpkin spice being something that’s very popular during the fall months, well, what if you live somewhere where the seasons don’t change as much? So Chris, you and I are based in New England.

And so we have the traditional fall where the you know, people go leaf peeping, and they drink their pumpkin spice lattes, and, you know, where they’re, you know, down vests and their black leggings and their whatnots.

And so, my first question when I look at this is, is it the same for every major region of the area that I’m covering from my marketing.

So if you’re covering Uni

In this week’s episode, Katie and Chris tackle the question of how to determine if someone has a good attitude and aptitude for marketing, business, or any professional even if they don’t have professional experience. The labor market is constrained for “hit the ground running” candidates, but the actual labor pool is much, much larger – and candidates like veterans, returning mothers, and other non-traditional folks could be even better than the current talent if given the right support. Tune in to find out how to determine whether someone’s a hidden gem.

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In this week’s in your insights, let’s talk about deepening our access to the hiring pool expanding who is potentially could be working in analytics or data science or management consulting or any of the fields that we talked about, and our attitude and aptitude.

One of the things that came up in a discussion recently was trying to find non traditional candidates, folks who don’t have the whole hit the ground running kind of thing, because in today’s labor market, finding people who can hit the ground running is going to cost you substantial premium, because you have to basically lower people away from other jobs.

One of the things that I remember Katie, from our days working together at an agency was when we were looking at candidates to work on our team, we weren’t always looking for people who could hit the ground running, because frankly, the agency we worked for at the time couldn’t afford it.

So we were instead of looking for people who had a good attitude, and an aptitude for analytics, and understand that they wouldn’t have the skills or the experience, but those are teachable things, you know, helping somebody develop an aptitude for something they don’t like, that is not really a teachable thing.

So my question to you is, when we look at non traditional pools, people, for example, like veterans, part time moms, people with disabilities, etc, people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, how do you find out whether somebody has an aptitude say, for analytics, if they have no experience, they had no skills, but they, they might have that knack for, they might have, you know, deep inside them with, you know, some some training and some some coaching, they might have like a full database architect in there somewhere.

But right now, they just fresh out of the army or whatever.

How do you how do you suss that out?

I love this question, because I feel like, as humans, all of us humans, we’re so quick to make snap judgments about people based on the little bit of information we know about th

In this week’s episode, Katie and Chris walk through what big data analytics are. What criteria separates regular data and big data? What are the four Vs of big data? How do big data analytics play a role in marketing analytics? Why don’t more marketers use big data and big data analytics to improve marketing? Tune in to find out!

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In this week’s In-Ear Insights, we’re talking big data analytics, what is big data analytics? Why do we care about it? And how do we get started with so Katie, let’s start off with just a simple what is big data analytics.

My understanding of big data analytics is it is the analyzing of big data, big data being large, like the term Big Data returns, it refers to volume.

And so it’s large quantities of complex data.

So it’s not just having, you know, five years of Twitter likes, it would be sort of the five years of Twitter likes and comments and sentiment, and all of the different elements that go into it.

And that is what comprises Big Data, essentially.

And so it’s basically data that is larger than you yourself, the human can handle.

So it’s more data than you can just put together and analyze into a pie chart in a spreadsheet, is the basic definition.

And so the analytics part of it, is, you need to find more sophisticated ways to analyze and do something with the data.

And that’s where machine learning and artificial intelligence and coding and all that stuff, Chris, that you do comes in?

Yeah, the tongue in cheek definition I’ve heard is big data is anything that doesn’t fit into spreadsheet.

The more formal definition is exactly as you said, IBM did a bunch of this years and years ago, and came up with sort of this four v framework that defines big data.

It’s volume, velocity, variety, and veracity.

So how much data is obviously a big part? How fast are you acquiring the data is important, right? If it’s just a static database, okay, you can work with that and take samples.

But if it’s like that, the Twitter firehose, and there’s millions and millions of new rows appearing every second, that’s definitely a big data.

Variety is the different types of data within your database.

So again, using social media, as an example, you have text, you have audio, you have video, you have maybe even interactive stuff.

And then the last one, which is always the biggest challenge in data science is veracity, how truthful how good is your data, right? If your data is filled with garbage and errors, then you’ve got a problem.

So big data ana

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In this week’s episode, Katie and Chris talk about marketing measurement strategy. What is measurement strategy in the context of marketing? Why do so many marketers and especially consultancies and agencies mix up strategy, tactics, and execution when it comes to measurement? How should you think about your measurement strategy? Tune in to find out!

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In this week’s In-Ear Insights, let’s talk about marketing measurement strategy.

So, Katie, I have a slight bit of a rant here.

Okay, let’s go.

I’ve had a lot of time chatting with other folks in, you know, in different consulting firms and agencies and, and, you know, big fives and all these, these folks.

And everyone loves to Bandy the term measurement strategy around like, oh, we do this strategic foreign measurement.

And then yet, from where I sit as someone who does a lot of measurement, period, a lot of what people are calling strategy looks an awful lot like, tactics, it’s just, you know, we’re gonna measure this, we’re gonna measure this, we’re gonna measure this, and I’m like, well, where’s the strategy? I feel like Clara Peller, from 1984, at Wendy’s, where’s the beef? Like, okay, we’ll get all this, where’s the strategy? What is it that separates strategy from tactics? And why is it that everything that folks are calling a measurement strategy looks an awful lot like just a shopping list of tactics?

Well, I think first, first, I want to dive a little bit into the psychology of strategy versus tactics.

And so, you know, both you and I, in the spans of our careers, have run into people who have said, No, I just use strategy.

For some reason.

There’s this.

I don’t know importance that’s connected with being the strategic thinker, the strategist.

And I personally, I don’t get it.

Like, anybody can put together a strategy.

Anybody can put together tactics, one is better than the other, you need both of them.

So just do it.

Like, who cares who’s doing it.

So if this, that’s, this is sort of my mini rant.

Now, now you’ve gotten me ranting, is, you know, people, it makes me nuts.

When people are like, No, I’m the strategic thinker, I need to put together the strategy, someone else can handle the tactics, feeling like the tactics are less important than a strategy.

Well, guess what? Without tactics, it doesn’t matter how bigger, greater wonderful or big thinking or forward thinking your strategy is, because you can’t do anything because you still have to break it down into an actionable plan.

So that’s my r

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In this week’s episode, Katie and Chris talk SEO and how to deal with diminishing returns in SEO. What should you do when your efforts aren’t yielding as much juice for the squeeze? How should you balance pillar content? What’s the role of content recycling? Tune in to find out the answers to these questions and more.

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What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode.

In this week’s In-Ear Insights, we’re talking about SEO, search engine optimization, and ways to make your efforts more productive.

And the first place we want to start is talking about what happens when you start getting what we call diminishing returns when you get less and less juice for the squeeze out of your SEO efforts.

So caving, anytime you’re dealing with diminishing returns, anytime you’re dealing with that reduction in effectiveness over time, it may be quick, it may be gradual.

What’s the first thing that you think about in and how to get out of that sort of slow decline?

I always kind of start to look at the keyword list, like what am I trying to be known for.

And that’s one of the challenges that we’re running into Now, Chris, is that I personally feel like we’ve exhausted our keyword list.

And we’ve added to our keyword list, we’ve amended our keyword list, we’ve redone our keyword list.

And the good news, bad news is we’re creating a lot of content.

So we’re trying, we’re trying to exhaust all those keywords.

But then the downside is we’re exhausting all of those keywords.

And so I find myself going back and repeating keywords.

And that’s where I start to get nervous of am I undoing the work I did for one post by writing about the same keyword in another post, and then they start to compete against each other.

So that’s where I start to look at what the heck are we doing? Like what, how do we stop cannibalizing our own content to I don’t know, find new ways to write about the same topics.

So it just it’s, I’m sort of at a loss.

Okay, one of the things that I was thinking about, actually over the weekend, because, you know, for folks who have not been watching the show for a while, we typically plan our content the week before, sometimes several weeks before.

And one thing I was mulling over over the weekend is the goal is to get more organic search traffic.

Right.

That’s, that’s what we want.

And ideally, that then goes on to convert, but keywords in content on site are sort of the foundational layer in the sense of like, you have to have content.

Otherwise, you’re sending people to your site

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