Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

IMAGINE THE AUDIENCE

In the context of analytics in a business environment, this is one of the more important principles. You really must design your data visualizations with the end in mind, and part of that requires you to think through the audience that will receive and review each project. Analytics professionals sometimes have a difficult time understanding this, but a sizable percentage of your nonanalytical business partners don’t have the ability, the time, or the interest in expending cognitive effort trying to figure out what your graphs mean. They want answers fast, and they want you to get to point quickly and succinctly. For this audience, each graph must be simple and clear and must make an obvious point.

You must also consider the role your key audience has in the organization when you create data visualizations. Is your primary audience a sales representative, a senior executive responsible for a marketing department, a customer, or some other group? The perspective your audience members bring with them in interpreting your data visualizations should drive your design. Exhibit 6.9 illustrates how Web marketing managers think about allocating resources among search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.10 Content creation stands apart in the cluster of tactics, for both its difficulty and its effectiveness. Good content creates buzz and attracts links. For this reason, marketers who commit to the effort that is required in creating quality content can improve their SEO ...