Does anyone want to fail? Surely no-one sets out to fail? We all want to succeed.
As marketers, we want to be bold and creative. But the pressures of achieving targets can often mean we get stuck in “safe” mode. We stick to a formula.
Failure isn’t fun. It can feel terrible. It can lead to loss of confidence and worse, a negative mindset that prevents us from considering new ideas, and alternative strategies.
But let’s think about failure differently.
We can learn a lot from traditional direct marketing methodology, where “test and learn” strategies often lead to failures.
Failure to achieve ROI. Failure to improve on the control activity.
But in direct marketing, it’s not viewed as failure.
Direct marketing doesn’t consider a test that didn’t work as a failure. It was a test, that’s all.
We tried it, and it didn’t work. We’ve learned something. Let’s try something else.
Without failure, we rarely make progress.
Standing out from the crowd can’t happen if you follow the herd.
So think differently.
Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Don’t take failure personally. Life is an experiment, a series of tests.
OK, so it didn’t work. Don’t fret about it – it’s just part of a process.
Now test something different. Move on.
