How to determine if your marketing message will work.

We have all sat through countless meetings with our co-workers, ad people, graphic designers, partners, vice presidents, managers, salespeople, etc.,  discussing what each person thinks about the current marketing piece, advertisement, etc. that is being considered for release.

As always, some will like it, some will not. Everyone will have an opinion…especially if there is a choice to choose from, then the sides will divide and the battle will begin.

I suggest that every moment of this is pure silliness. It makes absolutely NO difference whatsoever what the opinion is of the half dozen or so people who you are soliciting.  It makes absolutely NO difference what any ones opinion is regarding the likely effectiveness of an ad, or some specific marketing piece.

The only thing that makes any difference at all, and is the single most important issue, and perhaps the only issue…Does it work? Does it sell or advance the sales process meaningfully? Not I think it will work.  What difference could it possibly make  if everyone “likes” it or does not “like it”. Does it move the mountain? This is the only question that requires asking and answering. Find out is the answer.

Test any advertising or marketing tool or program before any major release.Better yet, test multiple approaches, if possible, and see which one works best. It doesn’t take a huge sampling to determine which ad or flyer, or mailing piece, or packaging look or whatever marketing tool you are about to implement, works best, test their comparative effectiveness and see which is more effective.

Follow the results, do not allow your ego to rule. In this case opinions do not count.

This is the way to decide which ad and which campaign you should use.

Following the same logic, another reason to use multiple marketing venues and tools, changing approaches and experimenting all the time and always keying the approach used to be able to measure the results. This further allows you opportunity to refine and experiment determining which tools and approach works best of all and thus deserves more of the marketing budget.

Testing takes time, planning and costs some additional money but is also  part of your advertising and marketing campaign, as its real time and happening so there is no waste involved or large extra costs as you are paying for the same ad space you were going to buy anyways, but providing different alternative art, graphics and/or message.It all works, some works better.

Other then the requirements of designing two approaches for each media tool you are testing and each program you want to consider and compare there are only insignificant additional costs required to test and compare approaches.

This is a small price to pay to be assured that your expensive advertising and marketing campaigns will be well spent dollars and you will bring you the results you want.

Test and stop asking for opinions, even your own is irrelevant. Let the market place tell you what works and what doesn’t. Advertising and marketing is too expensive and too important to guess. No what your doing, test the approach before you make a major commitment.