What is the optimal split between data-driven & gut-feeling marketing?

I'd say 50-50 now, but it depends very much on your market, and especially the relative size. If you supply to markets with lots of customers (e.g. B2C), data-driven marketing is more practical. In small markets, authentic (gut-feeling) marketing works better. But I also see a move: marketers are busy 'unmarketing' (click here http://www.amazon.com/UnMarketing-Stop-Marketing-Start-Engaging/dp/1118176286) and showing that they are human: http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/fixing-the-engagement-gap/

I Already got a awesome answer on Google+ that I would like to share here. answered: Excellent question! Taking my own business as an example (editorial and proofreading agency), I'd say that our split is around 80% data-driven, incremental marketing (testing what works and refining it) and 20% gut driven (Hey, let's see if this works!) I think that the optimal split changes depending on a few things: - Your niche / industry (Proofreading isn't an especially radical thing, but it is a necessary service for many people; disruptive marketing just doesn't fit with the image that we're presenting) - Competition - I'm a big believer in competitive research; how are our competitors marketing themselves. A good example of this in our industry is Grammarly, who have terrific marketing and a budget to match, we can't compete with that which brings me onto the next area - Audience - Does your audience want disruptive, gut-feel marketing or something more iterative - Brand - How strong is your brand? My belief is that businesses with strong or unique brands are better at disruptive marketing For us, 80/20 works well; however, I can see that in more innovative industries, a 60/40 split or something like that could work, especially in new technology, online apps etc. Ultimately though, I still think that data-driven marketing has to be a primary driver, as without measurement, you can't possibly know what marketing is working, now matter how leftfield or middle of the road! -- A good case in point is - In the midst of thousands of books on business, he came out with the 'Four Hour Work Week' concept which really captured people's imaginations and was very disruptive. (Whether his concepts actually work or not is a topic for another discussion!) Since then, he's gone on to build both the 'Four Hour' brand and his own brand substantially, mainly through alternative marketing channels. An interesting point here though is that he is almost obsessively data driven as well - He measures everything and uses that feedback to ask and answer big questions in his marketing. ========================== @JMacDonald has a talk that resonates with the thoughts behind this concept. It's a bit more abstract and not necessarily about the approach itself but about the purpose behind any approach you choose:

Both data and intuition are imperfect (and dangerous if misunderstood) in different ways. Data is often biased, messy, and not fitted to the problem question. Intuition is too sensitive to cognitive biases and puts too much weight on the credibility, power and information level of an individual person.  What is clear is that more and better data always trumps the capability to build predictive models. In other words, even the world's best data scientist won't be able to extract valuable insights from bad data. It's the "garbage in, garbage out" paradigm. The real answer is: one then the other. First use data, then use intuition. Success in marketing requires vision, leadership, and a lot of risk-taking. Listen too much to the data and you will tie yourself down into what your customers want or think they want: generally that's not very clear, and those needs/wants evolve very rapidly. Developing a gut capacity within your team will deliver outstanding results if - and only if- you bring your team to the point of having such deep knowledge of your customer base that you are able to intuitively predict what your customers will want. Data can only rarely do that because it can't fill in the blanks (and there are always blanks) in your knowledge - only your brain can do that, for now. Use the right data (tested data from clean and appropriate datasets) to educate your team to the point of the most perfect knowledge of your market, then let them run wild. Test the results. Rinse, repeat. Also remember that most of the success of marketing lies with product development, especially now that social media allows for fast and global word of mouth. Building a product or service offering that is unique, powerful, and meaningful is 90% of the battle.