Unfortunately, this is a phrase that has killed many could-be great marketing activities.
It happens with advertising channels:
“We tried PPC, it didn’t work.”
It happens with customer experience channels:
“We tried a mobile app, it didn’t work.”
It happens with social:
“We had a blog, it didn’t work.”
And it happens a lot in A/B testing:
“We tried a security seal. It didn’t work.” (Hint: It matters where your security seal is placed – is it placed in your footer menu or beside the credit card input field where the customer experiences the most anxiety? Or are you such a strong brand that a security seal is unnecessary in the first place?)
What’s worse, some marketers fail to blame their strategies, and instead blame the tools. We tried A/B testing and we didn’t get good results, therefore the testing software doesn’t work!
The danger in reliance on ROI:
We care about return on investment because we think it helps us divert money away from “bad” marketing activities so there’s more for “good.”
If you’re driven by data alone, without investigating why numbers are as less-than-awesome, you risk killing or starving entire channels, campaigns, strategies, tactics that could be resuscitated with optimization efforts.
Are you pulling the trigger too soon?
Image Credit: CC by David Mulder
