Napkin Math
Noun: Quick estimate to determine viability or feasibility
The nerdy charts I create as I dig for answers.
I find myself doing lots of “napkin math” to support strategic work. While creative teams thrive on unique cultural insights, stakeholders (and skeptics) are hungry for “proof.” A nugget that helps reassure them that strategy isn’t just instinct, but grounded in data. I want to stress that this does NOT replace in-depth qualitative and quantitative research. But it is a quick and easy place to start.
I’ve become a fan of Global Web Index (GWI) — a powerful audience insight tool that allows me to create custom audiences and then pull actionable insights. It’s hella nerdy, sometimes cumbersome, always tedious and very rewarding. It gives me lots of data points yet requires interpretation to be truly useful. Agencies and brands buy (an expensive) subscription to GWI with a limited number of seats for their team. After some haggling, I am the first independent consultant to have my own subscription. Super cool!
I’ve created a new offering called Napkin Math: a quick 2 day engagement to get the buy-in you need for your strategy (or business pitch, or roadmap, or whatever). Access to GWI + an awesome strategist to help you navigate all the data!
Napkin math can mean a lot of different things:
determine a target audience (who should you start with)
identify an audience pivot point (family make up, interests, media, feelings about digital privacy, etc)
size an audience (how big is the universe of people you may reach)
create heat maps (between two seemingly unrelated attributes)
provide nuance to social listening (not just the volume of conversation)
I’m sure there are others…
To start with a real life example (this was for a larger product strategy engagement), I needed to identify a starting point for a new service related to streaming TV. Luckily GWI digs deep into digital behaviors and media consumption. What devices do they use, what services they subscribe to, what other social media they use along with the expected demographics: how old they are, what gender, where they live, etc? I worked with this client to help develop 4 target audiences based on why they watch television. What do they get out of it? What are they looking for? How are their behaviors unique and distinct?
Next, we needed to prioritize. As a new service, we can’t talk to everyone. So who would appreciate the service out of the gate and more importantly, share it with their friends? We wanted to create advocates. So I went into GWI, created detailed profiles and dug through all the data to help prioritize them. The data helped us prioritize one audience based on which social media platforms and streaming services would help us reach the most engaged and most social audience. Simple perhaps, but powerful.
If any of this struck a chord, I’d love to find a quick “napkin math” answer to your question. Let me know. I want to break down some of the other types for you, especially audience size. More soon…
