Why Not Both: “Stacking” to Test Value Potential

I used to think I had to choose once direction when both paths looked good. Methodologies like “A/B testing” and “stacking” have set me free.

Well, the truth is, now I do twice the work to get twice the data, but it’s faster to learn up front than fail slow over time. If you get the chance, my recommendation is to learn fast, which often involves failing fast.

In marketing, a small business may consider the hard costs of designing the poster, printing the poster, and then installing the poster in bulk around a targeted area. Rarely do we plan to do 4 different poster designs, print them for the same amount of time and cost, install them for the same amount of time and cost, and learn which design is best, based on actual conversions over time.

We often think about the time that it takes to write the email campaign, setup the email campaign with video and graphics, and send the email campaign at the perfect time. Until MailChimp, how often did we consider duplicating the campaign, sending to the same audience at different times to see if both are good or which are better, send it to a segmented audience to see which types of demographic performers best, or even download and upload it to Constant Contact, to see if a similar campaign next week, using the same templates, performs better through Constant Contact’s server than it does through MailChimp.

Yes, I know it’s hard work… but it was already made easier by platforms. Why wouldn’t we make multiple versions of the same marketing and test it?

I remember my second consulting client back in 2013. The organization was in transition after their Marketing Director left. I was asked to analyze their existing marketing processes, advertising budget, website, current season’s sales — and explain to the CEO how I was going to improve their activities to sustain, or even dare to improve their quarter.

The CEO explained to me that 25% of the overall revenue was historically set aside for advertising. A large portion of this budget was commonly used for newspaper ads by the previous Marketing Director. This was six figures of ad spend! Due to the organization’s revenue, I was shocked about how much money was being spent on newspapers. I asked the CEO how this ad spend translated to bottom line value for the organization… he replied, “I really don’t know?”

So, I had to test it! Instead of running normal ads that month, I ran a coupon design, in the same size as the previous ad, that offered the same product at 50% off the price. I tracked sales from the newspaper using a simple code. When the sales from the newspaper ad returned 2% of the overall ad spend, I looked to other types of channels with a similar audience, like social media, and began short-run testing the same coupon. Back in 2013, Facebook had a 12% higher sales conversion rate that the newspapers. Plus, the reach and engagement for a targeted geographic area, was 10x greater. After testing, I knew exactly where the advertising budget was going to be directed.

The result? Sales increased dramatically for the year, reaching the organizations’ season capacity with a reduced ad spend of nearly 40%. The CEO invited me into the Board of Directors meeting and the room gave me a round of applause. By “stacking” channels for testing purposes, the organization learned to quickly move into social and digital channels, which set their growth up for years to come.

Digital Platforms Are Built to “Stack”:

Many social and email platforms are now built to stack. In the same way that Hootsuite allows us to duplicate and distribute the same message across multiple social channels, we should be preparing our marketing strategy to reach potential customers communities in the places where they are, whether a platform enables us to or not.

When realize that
1) We don’t know everything about other people…
2) There’s no real cost or time difference in our ability to experiment with multiple version of marketing content…
3) We can and should make the most of our working hours…

We finally start stacking and monitoring our content across different channels. Experimentation leads to growth and growth allows us to use and accept the concept of “both.”

Everyone Loves Baseball Analogies, Right?

With experimentation comes the freedom to fail.

While we do have to hone-in on the best content, we don’t have to hit a home-run on the first swing. Nolan Ryan is one of the greatest pitchers of all time, but he also holds the record for the most wild pitches. Pete Rose? Most hits of all time, but also the most outs.

When we talk about “stacking,” what we are really doing is giving us the mental and creative freedom to try small tests and fail. Nolan Ryan tested multiple pitches all over the strike zone, over threw the ball more than anyone, but still managed to strikeout batters, win many games, and become a hall of fame member as one of the greatest of all time. You can test multiple revenue streams at the same time, then choose what works. You can assign multiple websites on different business cards when launching your business and gain customer feedback, then go with the website that works best. You can replicate digital content, change it slightly and test its effect.

When there are two great concepts, brands, messages, ideas — I believe we actually increase money and resources by trying them. We could double up our earning potential and reduce our risk at launch by doing the upfront testing of two concepts as opposed to one. Later, we could make a decision to choose the most profitable one, or keep choosing both.

We all get in the mood of making a ‘gut-decision and just rolling with it.’ That’s why I’m not going to re-write this post twice. Let’s at least remember that “both” is an option.

What two concepts are you testing and comparing?