Guest Speaker: Jessica Roedersheimer, E.W. Scripps
November’s Web Analytics Wednesday featured an awesome presentation from Jessica Roedersheimer, a Digital Marketing Analyst with E.W. Scripps. Jessica shared the wisdom she’s gathered from working in the digital marketing field for over five years, both with digital agencies and client-side with her current company, E.W. Scripps.
Jessica’s presentation on “Making Data Everyone’s Business” was both insightful and engaging. And not just because she was handing out candy! But if you did miss it, I would like to share the three lessons she’s learned from her experience in the digital marketing industry:
1. Ask “Why?”
Many times, you will inherit reports, tools or processes that don’t necessarily make the most sense to you. Asking “Why” to the key stakeholders and end-users provides you not only with more clarity but also an opportunity to update or improve upon these.
2. Help to Continue Analytics Education
As an analyst, your job isn’t strictly to analyze. It’s also to educate and empower others within your organization on the use of data. Ultimately, the data you present won’t be effective if it can’t be understood. Therefore, educating key stakeholders on the importance of analytics is a crucial part of every analyst’s job.
A key tip from Jessica on educating others in the organization is to understand your audience. She gave a great example of a time she was explaining Google Analytics’ new multi-channel funnel report (which helps show which marketing channels “assist” other channels in driving conversions) to a predominantly-male group. Understanding her audience, she was able to relate John Stockton (the NBA’s all-time leading assist man) and his teammate, Karl Malone (second on the NBA’s all-time scoring list), to multi-channel funnels. Now that’s talent!
3. Create a Network of Data Advocates
Analysts can’t be everywhere at once, especially with organizations that have operations in many other cities or countries. It’s important to find advocates within the organization that can help you spread the data gospel and educate others on the importance of data to the organization.
Here are a few key attributes Jessica looks for in a data advocate: Comfortability with numbers, an eagerness to learn, and a willingness to communicate.
Interested in attending a Web Analytics Wednesday to hear more great speakers like Jessica?
