Perhaps one of the most unexpected ways for Creative teams to optimize their creative workflow is through reporting and analytics. According to the 2020 In-House Creative Management Report, 43% of creative teams don’t regularly track key performance indicators (KPIs). There are two main reasons for this. One, creative teams often don’t have access to data about their performance. If they aren’t using a purpose-built solution for creative workflow management that records data for the entire creative workflow, then they likely have either no data, disparate data, or large gaps in the data that make is unusable.

The second reason creative teams often don’t track KPIs is that they don’t feel comfortable with the data. There is a pervasive, if incorrect, idea that people are either left-brained (better with data) or right-brained (more creative). Not only has that idea been debunked, it is also irrelevant. It’s hard to overstate the importance of data in business and marketing. The organizations that creative teams work for are focused on data for making decisions and evaluating the success of campaigns and initiatives, so creatives should be too.

That being said, specialization is important, and we don’t need creatives to also be data scientists. The concept of the Analytical Creative is a creative person that understands how data can make their creative work more efficient and impactful and invests time in understanding the KPIs that are most important to their team.

So how do you become an Analytical Creative? In two easy steps.

First, start managing your work in a trackable way – that means using a single comprehensive platform to manage creative workflow from end to end. Such a platform will record data as it is created – when requests are submitted and accepted, when reviews are returned, what their status is, how many versions are created, how much time is logged on a specific task, start and due dates, and on and on. Then that data is made available for analysis in an intuitive reporting suite that makes it easy to quickly pull and share reports.

Second, start asking questions. All that data at your fingertips can be overwhelming, but knowing what you are looking for makes it much easier to get started. Some questions that detailed reporting can answer to help creative teams optimize their process include:

• How many requests have been submitted and accepted this quarter?
• Which stakeholders submit the most requests?
• What kind of work is most commonly requested?
• How long do different types of projects take from request to final asset delivery?
• How many projects did my team complete this quarter?
• Am I effectively distributing work among my team?
• Do I have enough resources (staff, budget) to meet the demands of stakeholders?
• How long does it take to get final approval on a proof?
• Do certain reviewers take longer to provide feedback than others?

If you’re ready to start being and Analytical Creative, sign up for a free trial of inMotion ignite to start optimizing your team’s workflow!

Elise Hauser is a product and content marketer with a passion for telling brand stories. She has produced inMotionNow’s annual In-House Creative Management Report for 3 years, webinars, content sessions for major industry events reaching audiences of 1,000+, and of course, countless blog posts. When Elise isn’t writing about the marketing and creative industry at inMotionNow she is teaching economics and hanging out with her cat, Tucker, at her home in Raleigh, NC.