Are your tests practiced drills, or wild swings?

So you didn’t “hit it out of the park” on your first attempt?
Well surprise surprise.

I’ve just seen a highly influential leader in another group telling their followers “press doesn’t work” .

They tried 1 ad, one paper, one placement, on one day. Now they’re writing off an entire medium AND telling everyone else to do the same because they tried once, and failed.

That in the face of an industry worth just short of £1 billion in the UK alone

You know what. Failure at the first hurdle is normal. It’s so normal I wouldn’t even call it a failure, unless you ignore the lessons and give up.

Your first attempt at anything isn’t about money, it’s about data.

Who are the people who responded?

• What message did most respond to?
• Did they buy at a higher or lower rate than you need them to?
• Who else is talking in the same medium?
• What else can we try? A different day, a different creative, a different headline, image, etc etc etc.

Now, I’m not saying that after all that it will work for you, but if you see someone else in your industry succeeding maybe you are going about it the wrong way.

And if you CAN’T see a competitor in the same place, you should be asking yourself whether what you’re doing is playing the game with skill, or just swinging with your eyes shut.