Thursday July 17th 2008

Marketing, Advertising & Media Tests work. Don't let anyone persuade you otherwise

In an earlier note in this series of "25 Things.." we observed (#4 on July 4th refers) that "testing" had become a dirty word in marketing circles. There is no possible justification for this phobia, other than from the marketing destructor who resents the prospect of finding out and who rejects determining what works and what doesn't.

The facts are straightforward. The recipe for making an inconclusive marketing test - that's the worst possible result  from any investigation - is easy to handle. What often passes as an "experiment" is in truth regularly no more than a post hoc review of what happened. Our experience is that this is a lousy recipe and doomed to fail. If the variables remain uncontrolled and the marketer takes the data "as it falls", this approach rarely delivers conclusive results.

There is an attitudinal bug bear to overcome. There are marketers who prefer inconclusive results rather than definitive proof that certain aspects of the marketing activity failed to deliver the goals.

Building in testing and investigation as an integral campaign execution methodology, usually delivers conclusive results - but yes folks, some of those with be "unacceptable"

But surely we all need to adopt the continual improvement agenda. As it was put to me years ago and is still relevant today - "If we don't "fail" or "get it wrong" from time to time, then we're not trying hard enough".

If you build  "investigation"  as an integral part of the campaign, and create variables of input you can be almost guaranteed to get conclusive results. Internet communication now makes continual testing & investigation the new marketing effectiveness norm.

Marketing, Advertising & Media Tests work. If your agency, consultants etc. tell you otherwise and encourage you to adopt a different approach, I suggest you get some new marketing effectiveness suppliers

For a range of commentary on advertising, media & marketing issues, John Billett's personal "Blogit with Billett" is at www.johnbillett.com (& click on "Blog" on the Home Page) or go direct to http://blog.johnbillett.com.