Most people think good marketing is about looking slick, and while that is an essential part of it, it’s not the whole story. The big visuals, clever taglines, and these things get you shared and get people’s attention, but the real work? That starts way before any of the other stuff makes it into the public domain. It’s the part where you try to figure out why people behave the way they do, so you can make more of an impact.
If you don’t get that, the rest is just noise with nowhere to really go. Because you can’t talk to someone if you don’t know what drives them to open their wallet in the first place, can you?
Look Beyond the Obvious
Everyone loves tidy data – clicks, conversions, impressions, easy numbers. But that’s just what people did; it doesn’t tell you why.
To make marketing that sticks, you’ve got to dig a bit deeper. Watch the small stuff. The emotional stuff. You can dive into Shinesty’s top cities for economic strength, where Shinesty ranks 100 cities by underwear spending, for a better idea of how this works. Weird, sure, but it actually says a lot. When people spend on comforts – small luxuries, simple things – it’s usually a sign of confidence. When they stop, you can feel the pinch in the air. That’s real-world data marketers often miss because they’re too busy chasing hashtags.
Read the Room
Not every place – or every person buys the same way.
What works in one city can tank in another, and this is why blanket campaigns rarely hit right.
Spend some time watching people talk, what they share, and what’s sold out locally. You’ll spot patterns and little cultural quirks that tell you much more than any spreadsheet can. And if you act on those shifts early – when people start pulling back or leaning into new habits – that’s where you win.
Turn Data Into Connection
Numbers are an important part of any marketing campaign. But they’re not the whole story, and they don’t do as well on their own. They need instinct to make them work, to reach their full potential.
If you know how people are leaning into their purchasing decisions, i.e., comfort buys, write with warmth. If they’re chasing feel-good treats, play with confidence, and hope. It’s a pairing that relies on your natural ability to take the data at face value and turn it into something more human, something real.
Marketing is not about shouting the loudest anymore; it’s about the connections you make, noticing the small details in what people do and how they live, and meeting them there.
Good data doesn’t replace intuition; it just proves what you already knew.
Your marketing campaign doesn’t need you to treat it like a theory. It needs you to pay attention, translate the spreadsheets into real people, real choices, real scenarios, and if you can do that, you can guarantee that you hit the mark with each and every campaign.
