The Need for Speed in Internet Marketing
By Mike Moran. Filed in Internet Marketing |Tags: Internet marketing, marketing
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Most of you know that I wrote a book on Internet marketing called “Do It Wrong Quickly”–but some overlook how important the “quickly” part is, because otherwise you’re just doing it wrong. The point of the book is to experiment with your marketing until something starts to work. You can’t overemphasize how important speed has become in marketing.
Think about how you end up with the right approach. You don’t know the right answer to start with—you find it by trying a number of possibilities and seeing which ones work best. The former CTO of Amazon once told me they could change a font at 9 am and by noon know if it was a mistake or not. Then they’d change it again, always searching for improvement.
Contrast this approach with that of the average company, which redesigns their Web site once a year. If it takes ten tries to get the right font, Amazon figures that out in a few days. The average company takes ten years.
What about your company? Do you spend your time lamenting about how those new cool Web companies seem to have better ideas? Mayeb they don’t. Maybe they just execute faster. Maybe instead of studying an idea until the it whimpers and cries for mercy, they just try it. If it works, it’s a keeper. If not, well, not.
Thursday, June 18th 2009 at 9:58 am |
Hello, nice post regarding speed of execution of new ideas/strategies. It reminds me one of the famous Tag line – “Just Do It” !!!
I totally agree that one should experiment a lot if he/she wants to have an edge in any niche…
Saturday, June 20th 2009 at 12:45 am |
I understand the intent of your post, and agree that speed is an important aspect in some marketing initiatives, but it is certainly not an absolute.
The world of electronic communication has allowed us to react and refine our online marketing initiatives at the drop of a hat. With that power and control, many equate action and motion with progress. Unfortunately, moving in the wrong direction, simply for the sake of “doing something,” could end up doing more harm than good.
There are many examples where a little thought and planning would have helped a company avoid making MORE mistakes than was necessary. Now, by saying that some planning is necessary is not an excuse to plan forever and avoid action. As with most marketing initiatives, balance is critical. The sweet spot can usually be found with some planning up front, with an eye toward educated hypothesizes, then movement and measured adjustments.
Saturday, June 20th 2009 at 1:26 am |
Certainly, Shawn. Nothing is an absolute in marketing.
My point is that if you have a feedback loop, you’ll discover your mistakes quickly and correct them. To take this to an extreme, if you have a feedback loop and no plan, you’ll eventually lurch into the right answer. If you have a plan and no feedback loop, you’re unlikely to be as successful.
So, I agree that planning is helpful, but doing things quickly doesn’t obviate planning. It’s just that I run into too many companies that endlessly plan but don’t execute. This post is for them, maybe not for you.
Monday, June 22nd 2009 at 11:31 pm |
I think its important to recognize agility and speed can be a huge advantage for small online business, they are more able to adapt to a changine market than those sites that are too big to fail.
Wednesday, June 24th 2009 at 1:00 pm |
I agree about “tweeking” a website constantly. Some of my smallest adjustments have yeilded the largest gains.