“So there will always be a human element and a gut element that this feels good to read versus I don’t like that, there will always be that right? But we can use information and data to make better decisions about those things and to see, you know what is working and what isn’t, that’s where the future is.”
From bussing tables to becoming a graphic designer to marketing and now communications, data has played a pivotal role in Ryan’s decision-making. Check out his entire journey:
Transcript: (Auto Generated)
So there will always be a human element and a gut element that this feels good to read versus I don’t like that, there will always be that right? But we can use information and data to make better decisions about those things and to see, you know what is working and what isn’t, that’s where the future is.
How did you begin your Journey?
0:30 I started my communications career from a marketing angle, I was I was doing marketing, and my company Adaptavist needed someone that was going to help structure communications internally a little more with a little more rigor around it with a little more focus. And I decided to take that leap. It was a different, a different thing than marketing to the public. It was, it was something that I hadn’t really done and I felt like it was a great opportunity to you know, face a new challenge and learn new things. That’s what brought me into communications.
Understanding Data
1:23I’ve been working with data since I was a teenager, you know, bussing tables. I would think about, I would think about how quick tables were turning over and how many plates there were, and how long that would take me to clean the table off. So I’ve always been a little bent towards information for decision-making and behavior, right? That was always sort of my thing. So yeah, that that I’ve been working with data forever as I grew into my other careers to my like more adult professional careers, data was still useful. So I spent a lot of time as a graphic designer before I went into marketing and graphic design even though it does have its own artistic bend, definitely you need information about where a person is looking what they’re looking for etcetera. So I would use data even then to determine layout and information distribution. Once I got into marketing, hardcore data is everything, everything you’re looking at information to tell what campaigns are effective, what media is effective, what is working, and what isn’t. And I’ve brought that into the communications sphere, what’s working, what’s registering, what’s landing, and what is going right over people’s heads, right and where people are connecting. That’s one of my most important data points actually is where the where the audience is. So I look at that over time to find out what channels are most effective in in in reaching the audience. Data is everything for our work.
Integrating Data into Campaigns
3:14I have a great team of digital marketers that helps redistribute ad spend and such depending on what numbers are looking for. We adjust our campaigns based on information as far as my day-to-day. I look at numbers before almost every meeting, I look at what what what is happening in my world where things need more attention and where they don’t or and you know this is of course data and reporting can only tell you what happened because it’s a rear looking thing, it won’t tell you why. So I love to use it as a starting point for investigation and for discovery and it helps me make a lot of decisions.
Solving Challenges with Data
4:07I feel like data, you know it’s in it’s in every you can’t like there are there are occasionally challenges that you come across that you can decide on an instinct right that you can you can look at and you can go yeah I I should do this right a sense and respond sort of of activity. But that’s rare especially when there is budget invested. You want to make sure that you’re doing the right thing by the numbers and making sure that your spend is as efficient as possible. So I have a hard time picking out a single moment. I mean there have been moments when we’ve seen a trend emerge so clearly like oh and sometimes it’s a negative trend. It’s a this isn’t working red flag. I can tell you of numerous times where after a couple of days slash weeks we can we have shifted because the data has said this is not happening, nothing’s happening here. And and we’ve tweaked it a time or two and we’ve pushed it out and it’s like nothing is still happening abandoned ship and you know, not really. But we changed tactics based on that information. So it’s hard for me to pull out a specific moment, but in my career, it has been a defining trend. It is the, the information that we look to, to make our decisions.
The go-to Metric
5:43I like knowing where people are spending their time on a page where they’re looking where their eyes are actually going because I, I really, I’m, I’m a big fan of the arts. and so I feel I want to make sure that that interesting art interesting design, interesting page layout is, is working and it’s catching people’s eyes and is wowing them and giving them a little bit of joy. You know, it sparks a little bit of joy when you’re looking. So I look to page, usage analytics quite a bit. I do like to, to stay on top of trends as far as time on page is like extremely important to me because if you jump onto one of my, our blogs or one of our product information pages and you’re only there for a few seconds. We haven’t done our job. We haven’t, we are, we are, our purpose is to grab you and make the information just a little bit stickier. So I like to see time on page going up. I like to see visits going up. yeah, those are my, those are my favorite things to look at for sure.
Favourite Tools
6:58We use hot jar quite a bit. We use hubspot analytics, Google analytics. I use – podcasting is a big part of my world. So I use the information that comes from our podcast service provider that’s called podbean. They have interesting geographic information. It it’s not as detailed as I want it to be but it does provide me with a good amount of information but as far as our website goes and our even our internal communications which is where most of my focus is these days. Google analytics is big. We have some analytics plugged into the back end of the alas ian tools and we use those quite a bit to kind of see for internal communications purposes who’s engaging with web with pages on our internet with blogs on our internet. I look at that information fairly routinely.
My 2cents
7:56The most in my opinion the most important thing that a communications person can do is be a good listener and and really deeply listen because there is value in in a person choosing to speak to you you are a communications person is entrusted with speaking to everyone. But when someone is coming to you you have got up to to put your agenda aside. You have to put your work aside and you have to give that person your full head space because they are sharing something with you that is valuable