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Throughout my years as an athlete, I’ve learned how important it is to focus on what matters and that getting back to the basics often yields the best results. If you can’t squat, deadlift, or bench press a decent amount of weight, all the accessory exercises in the world aren’t going to do you any good.

The e-commerce equivalent of this is when we focus on improving areas of our site which are not primary drivers of performance .

For example, one company I worked with had slumping online sales, and my job was to bring their neglected e-commerce site back to life. One reason for this was a previous e-commerce “coach”, who had them focusing on rewriting all of their meta tags and trying different ways to maximize the SEO of the current content of the site.

What they really needed, however, was to overhaul the content of the site. They were focusing on what they thought Google wanted from them, instead of focusing on what their customers wanted. (Sidenote: Google would be the first one to tell you NOT to try and jam keywords into your site to help your search rankings)

What we did instead was overhaul all of the product listings and added each product’s technical specs and current stock level, things which were extremely important to their customers.

This simple change of focus yielded significant results, and the improved content led to better organic SEO rankings anyways!

Are you focusing on what matters or are you losing the forest in the trees?

In my experiences, one of the most common causes of friction within an organization is the debate over the value of data/analytics within the marketing function. This false dichotomy of experience or data as the basis for decision-making can present challenges for developing an effective marketing strategy.

Both experience and data have their place. Experience is invaluable in filling in the gaps where data may not (yet) have the answer. The truth is, there is still much about marketing we don’t know, and, as mentioned in my post on survivorship bias, what worked for someone else might not work for you anyways. No one knows your business as well as you do, and the key to successful marketing is to use your experience to create a hypothesis and then test it with data and revise as necessary. Constantly testing and retesting will ensure that you give yourself the best chance possible for success.

Consider the following 2 examples of small businesses I have worked with, both of whom were looking to launch e-commerce sites.

Company A: Relied entirely on gut feelings to make all strategic decisions. Leadership did not buy into value of data, which made proving value of e-commerce initiatives difficult.  Ultimately, company ended e-commerce efforts and returned to status quo.

Company B: Knowledge of industry was used to formulate ideas for revamping struggling e-commerce business. These hypotheses were constantly tested, revised and retested. Ultimately, this systematic approach with full buy-in from leadership tripled their online sales within 1 year.

From these examples it’s easy to see that an integrative approach is best, especially for small businesses, where the resources and capital aren’t there to allow for large mistakes in strategy as seen with Company A.

 

When running a small business, one of the most alluring ways to create a marketing strategy is to ask “What did successful entrepreneur XYZ do?”

But behind this seemingly-logical way of thinking lurks something quite dangerous, the survivorship bias. In short, the survivorship bias means that when making a decision, we only consider those who have been successful with a particular strategy and overlook those who have failed.

As someone who has worked extensively with small businesses, I have seen how this type of thinking can take over. Trying to imitate successful businesses is an easy (not to mention convenient) way of running a business. However, when making a decision we need to consider the likelihood that someone has tried the exact same thing as the successful person and failed miserably.

For example, one small B2B business I worked with attempted to adopt a multi-billion dollar competitor’s strategy and entered the corrugated box market. It seemed enticing at the time because,they were so successful with it, so why couldn’t we do the same? As it turned out, the box business was a complete failure for this business. The low-margin and overestimated demand for boxes from their customers quickly ate away at any revenue brought in through this new venture. Add in the storage space required for thousands of boxes (not a problem for a billion-dollar company with enormous warehouses), and the box business generated more problems than profit. Within several months, this company promptly exited the box business.

The key takeaway from survivorship bias is to embrace complexity. Before you decide on a strategy based on someone else’s success, ask yourself “Did any of the 8 out of 10 businesses that fail try the exact same thing?”¹

Copying a successful business may seem like an easy solution to any problems, but success is always situation-dependent. It’s important for you to understand what will work for your business situation. 

Contact Sperl Marketing today for a personalized strategy designed to help your unique situation.

 

References

Eric Wagner – https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/09/12/five-reasons-8-out-of-10-businesses-fail/#1639b4306978