Sometimes, the only thing you can change is your mind

So, you failed.

OK, let's not be too hard on ourselves.  Instead, let's say your marketing program didn't live up to the expectations you set.  What now?

No marketing program ever improves on its own.  We all know the expression "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results," even if we really don't know who first said it.  Unfortunately, we can't change all of the elements of a marketing problem as easily as we can change, say, our socks.  After all, marketing teams have limited budgets and limited time which, in turn, mean that they may not have the wherewithal to change process, message or technology.

Sometimes, the only thing a marketer can change is her or her mind.

More often than not, however, changing one's mind will work just fine.  Here's how it works.  To make the approach more clear, I'll use the example of a consumer credit monitoring company for whom I had designed an unsuccessful program.

Breaking the Test Barrier

As a marketing strategist, nothing bugs me as much as clients who don’t--or won’t--test.

I have yet to meet a veteran marketer (or to read an article by one) who does not espouse testing for addressable communications as a blanket concept.  I have yet to hear a marketer who’s employed testing for email, on-site messages or catalogs tell me that he or she didn’t learn anything.  Yet, even among some of the most sophisticated clients, testing remains terra incognita.

There seem to be two main reasons for not testing.  Thankfully, simple reasoning can undo either of them.