A few years ago I went from being a data analyst to becoming a data storyteller. Maybe it was all the cartoons and movies that I’ve watched over the years. Maybe I was so overwhelmed by data that I started to simplify everything to preserve my sanity. That is what we humans do, after all. The Universe is complex so we simplify. no offence to the Universe, we’re just simple creatures.
Before then, my career had moved with the media and technology industry that I loved. The data sets were growing bigger and so I was changing to keep up with the data. I had learned my Python and my SPSS and my statistics. I had learned how to code and transform data and the types of data that I was dealing with went from mostly surveys to pretty much everything. But no matter how much data we collected and analysed, the basic patterns always emerged.
People are storytellers, so successful campaigners play along and help them tell a story. Call them to an adventure, expect them to get a bit lost and make the purchase seem like a victory.
The Shopper is the Hunter and the Hero. The product is the Prey and Prize. Effective advertisers and marketeers, frame everything they say with that in mind.
People are habitual, herd-like and still people. We don’t need to track them because as soon as we know who they are, we know where they are and where they are going.
All of these things you already knew, so I’m confirming that no matter what tools and lifestyles emerge in the next 20-30 years, as long as you’re dealing with people, you can and will adapt to them pretty easily so long as you remember that it’s all a story.
Your customer is telling a story, you are telling yourself a story and you need to tell your stakeholders a story using the tools and information you have to hand.
At the end of every successful heroes journey, you get a gift from the goddess (Sophia) and you have a grateful empowered hero ready to take on another adventure. Thank you for taking this reading adventure which, hopefully confirmed many things that you already knew and gave you my perspective from data lead experience of the Customer Purchase Journey.
Next week I start focusing on numbers starting with the “The Rule of Three”.
This is helping me understand the psychology of why owning something automatically makes it less appealing. On to the next shiny new purchase adventure!
The end of one thing also means beginning of another! 😊
Fighting! 👍💪✌️