What is analysis paralysis in marketing, and how can you overcome it?
You have a marketing problem. Perhaps, traffic to your website is dropping. You need to find out why and then rectify the situation. You invest in an expensive analysis tool that provides you with all the information and data you need to correct the problem. Now, you just need to use that data to find out what you need to do to correct the problem, and you're good to go.
However, with so much data and information and so many different places to start, you begin overthinking it.
You know that you need to do x, y, and z, but you can't commit to any of them. Why not? Analysis paralysis.
In an Oracle survey, 97% of people surveyed said they needed more data to help them make decisions. However, 72% of those people surveyed admitted that the volume of data they had access to prevented them from making decisions effectively or at all.
What Is Analysis Paralysis?
According to Wikipedia, "Analysis paralysis (or paralysis by analysis) describes an individual or group process where overanalyzing or overthinking a situation can cause forward motion or decision-making to become "paralyzed," meaning that no solution or course of action is decided upon within a natural time frame. A situation may be deemed too complicated, and a decision is never made, or made much too late, due to anxiety that a potentially larger problem may arise."
You know that you need to make a decision, but the fear of making the wrong decision or having too much data and information flooding in to make the decision quickly causes you to make no decision at all.
According to Psychology Today, the root cause of analysis paralysis is anxiety, which stems from weighing an endless number of different outcomes while picturing the negative downside to all of them. It makes picking the best option from several bad ones difficult and ultimately will make even the best decision appear bad.
So, what role do information and analytics marketing tools play in analysis paralysis? Let's investigate this further.
Marketing Information and Analysis Tools Are Great. Aren't they?
Semrush, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Optimizely, Sprout Social, and the list goes on and on. So, what do all of these tools have in common? First, they'll get you the raw data and information that you need to make better-educated marketing decisions.
They'll tell you which keywords to target, how to target them, where you should focus your attention, what your competitors are doing, and, best of all, how to beat them and come out on top.
That's great, isn't it? More data, information, and statistics are just what you need. But is it?
What they won't do is make your decisions and implement them for you. So, at the end of the day, paying for all the marketing insight tools in the world won't help you if you suffer from analysis paralysis.
Let's examine why you need marketing insight and what marketing analysis tools can assist you.
85% of business leaders said that they've suffered from 'decision distress,' second-guessing the decisions they make. Not only that, but the situation has gotten so bad that 21% of business leaders surveyed said they'd given up on making decisions based on data and instead were simply "making decisions based on their gut instincts."
Why You Need Marketing Insight and Information
There are a variety of reasons why you may be interested in growing your business using marketing insight. Below are four approaches that allow you to get started right now.
Understand Your Competition – What content are your competitors creating, and how is it performing on social media and search engines? If you know that a keyword is working for your competition, then you can create better content that leverages your content. Also, if you know what's not working for them, you can avoid it completely, saving yourself a lot of time and effort.
Discover New Content Ideas – If you know what topics, content, or keywords drive traffic, then you can use that to come up with ideas for your own content. Again, you'll be focusing on what works while saving time by avoiding what doesn't.
Increase Shares and Build Links – Which websites link to your competition? What's getting them the most backlinks? Who's sharing your competition's content? Once you know the answer to these questions, you'll be in a better position to build backlinks of your own.
Engage with People that Matter Most of All – The people that like, share, and comment on your content are your most valuable assets. If you can find these people, and create content that they'll engage with, then you'll see a massive increase in engagement.
However, knowing all this won't help you at all if you can't act on it.
Getting down and creating the content is 100% up to you.
Did you know approximately 80% of your traffic will come from 20% of your content? What does that mean? For every 20 blogs you create, four of them will hit the mark, and the rest won't. This effect is known as the Pareto Principle, and it applies to marketing.
According to Asano, "the Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) is a phenomenon that states that roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes."
How To Overcome Analysis Paralysis
If you're struggling with making your marketing decisions quickly, and it's affecting your ability to capitalize on your investment in marketing tools, then don't panic. There is a way to fix it. The following strategies can help you make smarter decisions faster.
Set Yourself A Deadline – If you know you're prone to procrastinating, set yourself a deadline for making decisions and stick to it.
Narrow Down Your Options Early – Instead of starting off with 10 possibilities, start narrowing them down quickly and get rid of 5 right off the bat. Fewer options mean less time spent deciding on them.
Being Impulsive Isn't Always Bad – Making any decisions is better than waiting and making none. So, start practicing by making smaller decisions in your everyday life faster.
Use A Framework – Set up a decision-making process or framework to help you make decisions faster and more efficiently.
Embrace Simplicity and Trust Experts for Effective Marketing Strategies
In a perfect world, information tools are a significant investment.
You get access to all the data, insights, and information you need to make the best decisions to improve traffic, increase conversions, and take a larger share of your market.
Regardless of how good your information tools are, they'll never do the work for you.
However, for most of us, access to too much information and data has the opposite effect. It causes us to hesitate, question, and overthink the decisions we need to make, resulting in no decisions at all.
Have you ever considered an alternative strategy?
Instead of investing in tools that give you too much information and can cause you to hesitate, invest in a company that already understands the information and how to best implement it.
Remove the decision-making from the process altogether and trust your marketing to the professionals that know how to build a marketing strategy for your business that works.
About 6° Media If you want to create a digital culture for your company that wins over customers' hearts, 6° Media is here to help. Our skilled marketing experts can foster your business's continuous growth at scale, and on-budget.