What To Do When Marketing Goes Wrong
Have you ever had a campaign fail miserably?
You know, the crash-and-burn, dismal ROI, “I told you this wouldn’t work!” kind of failure?
Use Your Reverts
Here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book about what to do when your marketing goes wrong:
In the 1990s, a couple of guys named Sabheer Batia and Jack Smith built a lean working prototype of something called Hotmail. They rolled it out to some friends and family. Which was great…but that’s hardly a leap toward capturing market share.
As the story goes, the pair’s investor asked them how they were going to market the startup email service. They suggested some traditional, and expensive, marketing channels. But their investor had another idea — and he pushed for it.
He suggested that at the bottom of each email message sent through the service, they append a hyperlinked message that read: “PS, I love you. Get your free email at HoTMaiL.com”
(Yes, that’s how they originally spelled Hotmail.)
The theory was that recipients of the emails would see the link to start their own free account, become intrigued, and then sign up for a free email account of their own.
In the startup world, there is something called the viral coefficient. Simply put, it’s a measure for how many new users each existing user generates. It’s like an accelerated referral formula. Hotmail hit the digital nail on the head. With this small hack, every email attracted new users with viral efficiency. And after about seven months they hit two million users.
Growth hacking is about taking things straight to the users. Because, by circumventing standard channels, you find wonderfully quiet places to get your message heard.
However, it also entails risk. Usually lots of it. For instance, the Hotmail stunt could have easily ticked thousands of people off. After all, they were tossing an ad at the bottom of every email sent. This could have resulted in people abandoning the service just as quickly as they signed up. However, it didn’t. It worked.
But consider, even if it hadn’t worked, what would they really have lost? With a few clicks, the hack could’ve been removed. With a few words, they could’ve offered an apology. In fact, circumstances like those are actually an opportunity to show authenticity to customers and users.
The point is this growth hack wasn’t retroactively a great idea because it worked. It was great because it was:
Simple,
Low-effort to implement,
Fast to execute,
Easy to test,
And a breeze to revert if necessary.
This was the content hacker’s three constraints at work. Their one metric that mattered? Customers. Their goal? 1,000,000. Their timeline? Within six months. Content hacking for the win!
Use Your Reverts
That’s what a growth hack looked like for a ’90s tech startup. With just a few lines of content, Hotmail grew exponentially. But can you imagine if someone included this idea in an established company’s marketing plan? What do you think would happen?
Maybe it would get consideration at first blush; but would it actually ship? Not a chance. Fear of pissing off users, decreasing brand value, or getting flagged as spam would prove the stranglehold that put an idea like this to rest.
Further, this idea would be far too risky for an RFP. They’re about slightly bending the knees and knocking the drive straight down the fairway or around the pond. But “P. S. I Love You” looks more like trying to drive the ball straight over the pond. It’s the green or the drink. Sure, we’ll shave off two strokes, but we may also get wet.
But many of us stand on the tee box and say: “Well, shit, I can’t get wet!”
But why not? Pants dry people.
When you fail, simply delete the proverbial code and let your pants dry. Programmers call this reverting their code. It happens when they launch a new version of something that breaks the application or software product itself. For these programmers, it only takes a single click of the mouse to instantly go back in time to the previous version.
Marketers get reverts too.
Embracing Failure
In The 10x Marketing Formula you’ll learn a paradox: embracing failure is part of achieving success.
It’s counterintuitive, but I’ve seen it prove true time and again. Plus, you get permission to use your marketing reverts…
What do you think?
To get more insights from the marketing formula that will make you more successful than you’ve ever been before, head over here and get on our early access list.
I’ll immediately send you a free copy of chapter 1, invite you to chat in our private 10x Marketing LinkedIn Group, and keep you charging full-steam ahead on your very own path to 10x success.
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