Science vs Art of Internet Marketing ... Which one are you?

It is niether art nor science

It is just being able to understand human nature

As far as the tecnical stuff. With the advent of WP and themes and plugins, the only ability that is required is that you can read, understand, and implement simple instructions.

And, if you can't even do that then there are videos that will hold your hand and walk you through it.

al

You need science to learn the market as well as you need art to run the marketing in personal way...

Business is a blend of both. Writing, design, video, graphics all fall mainly in the art basket. But to do that stuff justice these days one needs to have some technical ability as well, which is primarily science as you put it.

Ideally, people leaning heavily toward one need to get help with the other. I'm a writer, definitely on the art side of the equation. But I can do some of the technical stuff. I'm not happy doing it but still, I do it anyway because it's usually easier than stopping to find someone to do it.

Ideally, the goal is to get good enough at one or the other so that you can outsource the stuff that doesn't come to you easily. Then you can spend your time doing what you love. Good luck.

That's a difficult question. I do have an unhealthy love of Excel and other analytical tools, but I would say my main strength lies in coming up with new angles on things.

I kind of look at things and ask why a lot. When a certain question seems to be bringing my brain to the brink of a meltdown I usually pull out Excel and try to find the answer.

Hi Searchnsite

I guess I do what you say ... surround myself with people who can quickly deliver the areas I am weak on

You can branch it out however you wish, but science is nothing more than knowledge attained through study, experimentation and practice. Marketing, and everything under the umbrella of "marketing," like advertising, can, and is, studied and practiced to such a degree that almost exact results can be expected through implementation.

I consider myself more an internet psychologist. What makes people tick or click I should say. The science of some basic testing combined with a gut feeling just round it out.

I think first and before all it's work...
and that seems to be the most overlooked thing with so many people hunting for a quick Dollar (not only here).

If you mix work with commitment and love...and you gain a lot of experience... it might be or become more of a calling than an occupation ... and you might get good enough that you might consider it an art or science... but at that point it doesn't matter anymore... cause what ever it is... it makes you a happy and content human being.

I think being as we are on the computer and internet everything has turned into a science, especially when it comes to selling. If you are a writer you can be as creative as you want, but then you have to make your writing to fit, use different fonts, use words a certain number of times, include them in the titles, it kind of takes away from the idea of creative expression. if you are an artist it's going to be rare when you get a chance to just draw, you may be creating boring icons, music is the same way, you are not going to have room for creativity, if you do try to be creative you will loose most if not all of your audiences.

even if you think you are not on the technical side of things, if you want to make money you will be. personally, i can do it all, but must push myself to do parts of it. i don't care about wordpress, i don't care about hosting, shoot i don't care about the technical stuff. so, its rough we have to divide things up and i can truly understand why profession artist are kept away from worry about the business sides of things so that they can really get down and do what they do best.

when we all get to some level of perfection in this business, then we can just outsource and do the same

I'm a scientist... a handsome one too. With a touch of copywriting flair and web design and marketing experience... i believe i qualify as a vet in this field.

You need both to succeed, it's an art because you need to be creative and create your own models and it's a science when you are testing and tweaking the sales page and the offer. So you use both. I'm going to say it's more important to have the feel for the marketplace that knowing a ton of math, if you have the feel for the marketplace you can write a sales page that converts.

Very humble Randall ... loool

I think of the Science of Internet Marketing as the hard skills.
And the Art of Internet Marketing as the soft skills.

One is not necessarily harder than the other. Or, requiring more/less intelligence.

It’s more a matter of disposition / personality.


Why do many big companies do personality testing to screen job applicants?
Obviously, to identify applicants best suited for the job description.


For example, what kind of people does NASA typically hire?
Compare that to an elementary school? Or real estate agency? Or hospital care ward? Or car dealership?


Soft skills = people skills.
Hard skills = logic skills.


People tend to initially make decisions emotionally. Then use logic to justify the decision already made.


People with naturally stronger soft skills already know this intuitively. And act upon their emotions more confidently.


This ‘confidence’ is a great advantage in selling anything, whether offline or online.


Sales is an emotional transfer of belief from the provider to the buyer. More people will buy if they sense a confident emotion. Logical type people have to figure this all out first. It takes more time for them to process and decide. This often looks slower and more hesitant. And may cause them to appear less confident, and lose the first-mover advantage.


Internet marketing requires both types of skills — soft and hard, or people and logical.
“Ignorance on fire” is usually the more emotionally intuitive person acting fast with confidence. But in order for them to appear successful, they have to be acting within a system or process to give them direction. And someone else, often a more logical person, created that system.


So both types are working together, even if the soft skills seem to be more visible.


Marketing is usually surface. Strategy is usually foundation.


Marketing favors soft skills. Strategy favors logic skills.


Understanding and focusing on your own skill strengths will help you act more successfully.


What ever you decide, just do it now, because life is short.

Here are a few resources for you to look into (and I vouch for the quality of all of them):

Build a Website - Squarespace 6
Squidoo : Welcome to Squidoo
Profitable Writing System
Make More Money from Your Web Copy
The RANT - John Carlton's Official Blog

I'm not good creating sales pages that converts very good. Either Am I exceptional good to the technical stuff. But luckily for me, there is something called outsourcing

I can build sites myself and I always do it. I do SEO myself, but if the competition is very hard I outsource it.. Sales pages is probably the thing I'm doing worst..

I guess this would make me a scientist..

If you're very good at something, maybe you should focus only on this and make a living out of it. "warriors for hire" section may be something for you..

Marketing Art Vs Science is not being able to program.

Marketing art is being able to think up say tag lines or themes that are IMPOSSIBLE to come to using scientific methods (although you can use science on the data AFTER they are thought up)... ie. Volkswagon Star Wars Commercial
There is no forumla that you can plug in that you can enter Volkswagon Commercial = Star Wars + Little Kid This is why its an "art".

The science is all the "science" that was done behind the scenes to discover the target market, age, sex, and then analyze the results of this commercial and put it together in a way that the "art" message performs optimally. If the commercial was run at the wrong time, on the wrong channel etc it wouldn't have made as much impact.

Science can only do so much, and art can only do so much... you need them to work together.

IMO anyone can learn the science to at least a decent degree (although some will be talented at it) but the art you just have it or you don't for the most part.

I am a science marketer I think but I love the art side of things.
I love spending a short amount of time maximizing the most profit but if I was to truly follow my heart I would spend more time working on the creativness of building and designing sites.

I run an offline mobile website business on the side with my partner and love creating those sites. My flair comes out there I guess

Now Alexa you dont know this but I am a big fan of yours ... have secretly read a number of your posts and not commented.

It is clear to me you are a successful marketer and I think it demonstrates a point that you are doing okay without the technical side and I guess buy that part in.

BERNARD

I think you need an understanding of both, here is why

if your technical but not creative , hire some one that is
if your creative but not technical, hire some one that is

but the biggest thing is that I found you need a decent understanding of the work you need doing to insure you get what you pay for, from freelancers, nothing worse than trying to out source something you have no idea about.

Looking back on history the trend has typically been the artistic first, followed by the science or technology. Science or technology is little more than the formalising of the artistic. The artists imagine and creatively lead the way. Then the logical analysts come along and measure the art, develop formulae, and turn it into science and technology. Even computer programming was an artform originally. We all have some of both in us and both have their advantages.

I generalise here but:

Those who favour artistic ability have a creative advantage although tend to be inconsistent. They can evolve with the big changes in the market place more easily.
Those who favour the technical/scientific discipline prioritise form and method over creativity but are more consistent and can adapt more easily to small changes in the market.

The advantage will go to the ones that can recognise when artistic creativity is more suitable and operate creatively and then recognise when method is more suitable and switch to process mode.

I believe I'm more of a scientist as I can understand programming faster than I can write sales copy.

I think we need to know both Art & Science although our strength might be not the same for both, but we need to at least learn both.

I mean it's easier to explain to a programmer if you know a bit about programming, and you won't get con also because you'd know how much roughly to pay for certain things like setting up a wordpress blog.

I feel sad for those people who paid thousands dollars for a wordpress blog that can be setup in 10 minutes which some 75 dollars worpress theme.

So, although you don't like something, at least know the basic.

Chetz