I can’t tell you how many times I’ve suffered through meetings where marketing teams deliberate endlessly about subjective content treatments without having a clue about testing and conversion results (A/B tests or multivariate testing).
Everyone gets so stuck on perfection and polishing, when in reality testing and stumbling are proven to be the best processes for learning from your audience and actually refining your message. Most software companies now follow this approach when developing code. See Eric Ries exceptional book The Lean Startup to see how it’s done.
Yes, you’re allowed to fail on the inter-webs. You can do a full blown yard sale publicly and chances are no one will notice. That’s the rough part. There’s too much noise out there.
You have to think Seth Godin and target relentlessly.
Inbound marketing strategies, systems and tools help you manage all this. Marketing automation helps make it less painful. The tools are out there. Think Hatchbuck for email, Infusionsoft for campaigns and Hubspot for SMB solutions; and think Eloqua, Marketo and Salesforce Marketing Cloud for enterprise solutions.
There are ways to create and pivot and learn. Start now (like Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start).
