Five Steps To Take After A False Metrics Issue

Many Numbers, No Friends

Here's something that should never happen, and all too often does, in marketing and advertising: your metrics come under question. Either a portion of response isn't being counted, some attributed revenue error has occurred from crossed wires, a keypunch error occurs and does major damage, reporting from a third party source fails you, and so on, and so on.

Let's also assume it's not your fault, and you still have a gig. What should your next move be?

1) Resist the urge to go off on a multi-state killing spree, even though no jury of your peers would give you anything more than time in Country Club Prison as a punishment.

Well, mostly because marketing and advertising people are rarely on juries, and mostly because it's very unlikely that any of your victims are to blame for the situation. Besides, it will get misinterpreted. If you must rage, I suggest weeding. Very aggressive weeding.

2) Wait to publicize the problem until you have a plan. 

Bad news spreads fast, but bad news with no greater subsequent action of "Well, I've told you about this, so now you can feel as bad about it as I do" is just irresponsible. If your numbers are getting adjusted, or previously known points are no longer known, you want to own that, rather than have it given to you.

3) Find the benefits -- and yes, there will be benefits. 

Are there expenditures that you can now cut, bullet points that you can leverage in negotiations, or others in the industry that are operating under the now discredited assumptions? These need to be brought to your management's attention immediately, not because every cloud has a silver lining, but because they are opportunities that should be exploited. Fortune favors the brave.

4) Develop contingencies, back ups, and useful suspicions. 

Even if no one is blaming you for this adventure, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be thinking about steps to take to make sure it doesn't happen again. Maybe more supervision of keypunch work, espionage work to see what rates and practices the rest of the industry is following (so you don't find yourself at a suspicious level again), or a third-party audit to give everything a sanity test. Oh, and try to make sure that everyone remember this the next time that some troublesome number is taken as gospel. Never let a crisis go to waste, folks.

5) Try to look at this from a future perspective. 

Finding errors is never fun, but the nice part is that once they are found, you don't make them any more. Doing marketing and advertising is kind of like driving a tank; if your view and gauges aren't showing reality, unplanned things are going to happen. Life is better with planned things. And certainly a lot easier on the other vehicles in the parking lot, and the fauna.

Anything to add? Would love to hear from you in the comments. Remember, the truth will set you free!

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Making It Better: Seven Marketing Ideas for Gymnastics Meets

Very Important Gear

As a parent of a competitive gymnast, I've spent many hours at my daughter's meets over the past three years. If you've never had the pleasure, let me describe how this works. You pay to place your kid in a class. You pay to have her on a team, complete with the shockingly expensive team leotard that she'll be constantly pulling at. You pay to get into the actual meet itself. And then you duck hours of lame lottery pitches, cold concessions, and candygrams and stuffed animals that you can give to buttress the confidence of your athlete. All while spending four to five hours of stress, waiting to watch your kid perform for less than ten minutes, on four different pieces of apparatus.

Needless to say, there's a lot of dead time. And more than enough time for me to think about ways to make it better. Let's go to the list!

1) Computers and projection systems exist. Use them. Every meet I've ever been to has come down to people with clipboards writing down scores, and way too much time waiting around at the end of the meet so that someone can do math, badly and slowly, before handing out awards. All of which is very exciting to the kid for her first meet, but after about two or three times through the ringer, they are pretty much done on wanting to wait around. Have the awards ready to go as soon as the last kid performs, because every parent alive will adore you for this. Failing that, mail 'em.

2) Set up your gym for prime photography and video. With everyone having the ability to get performances on video, and professionals in short supply or need, there should be a simple and defined place for people to shuffle in and out and get their video done. Enough with having the heads and bodies of other people getting in and out of shots. Just set up walkways and defined spaces. This shouldn't be hard, and we've never seen it.

3) Go beyond 50-50 tickets. Honestly, from the folks I've seen at these events, scratcher tickets would sell. So would video poker in the lobby. We've got a lot of time to kill here, people. If you gave a concession split to a vendor on this, you'd make a mint, and add a little more poignancy and tragedy to someone's losing day. Why is Daddy crying? Because he's so proud of you. So much that he's going on a diet for a few months.

4) Actually make Wifi work. I know, I know, I'm asking for the world here, but this never works, and drives everyone insane the entire time they are trapped in your gym.

5) Premium seating. I'm not talking about actual front row stuff, because to be honest, you should move around during the meet as your kid goes to various apparatus. But if someone wants to rent seat cushions to supplement those terrible folding chairs? Ca-ching.

6) More freedom with the candygrams. Why limit messages to how proud you are of your kid, or how much you love them? Let's hear some options like how much the other teams stink, how in a world where death and taxes are the only constant, her beam routine is the reason for hope, and that life itself is very much like the vault. Let's add some head scratchers to these, please.

7) Juke box heroism. Sure, you can do your floor exercise to your preferred music, but can you do it to music that's been chosen at random, with special challenge tracks brought in to see if you can avoid laughing? Add some drama to this. And if the kid can hit her spots to Barney the Dinosaur or Metallica, I'm even more impressed.

Bonus - Liquor license. And maybe vendors. Beer Me!

Got any others to add to the mix? Feel free to add them in the comments. I've got many more meets before the season is over...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Global and Local Change

Gets License, Facial Hair

If you read about Millennials and their buying habits, you've heard how there's been a sea change in their thinking and needs in the past few years. Gone, we are told, is the all-consuming interest for their own cars, replaced by the desire to be ferried around while they text in peace. Failing the Parent (or Grandparent) Valet Service, we're told that Uber and Lyft are just the ticket, especially because such a move is summoned by the all-powerful smartphone. Independence and the open road? Meaningless, compared to the wonders of cyberspace. Oh, and by the way, Dad, no one uses the word cyberspace anymore.

They also cast a fair amount of side eye, by the way, at the idea of self-driving cars. No one's seen that where I live, and you generally aren't going to be able to sell kids on bleeding edge technology. Besides, the mechanisms of the local school system codify drivers education as a credited course, with simulators and everything. It's very serious business, Dad. Cars matter.

And as for the new tech... well, maybe somewhere else. Especially in places where ride sharing services are ubiquitous, or the kids make their own money and pay for everything. (That place is, I am sure, Parent Utopia.) Which isn't exactly my neck of suburbia, or the experience of either of my siblings, both of whom have auto-ready kids. For them, the rite of passage is the same mix of excitement, terror and tedium that it was for us, lo those many years ago, when we became of automotive age.

This is, alas, the nature of change. I don't doubt that in the Bay Area, or maybe the boroughs of New York City, or other enlightened areas with massive ride-sharing penetration and good mass transit, there's less appeal than there used to be for cars. After all, the median age for new car purchase is now in the mid '40s and climbing ever higher, and there's got to be something to all of those rising demographic numbers.

Just not in the here and now, or in my personal zip code. (Couldn't get her to sign off on the hoverboard a few months ago, either. Maybe my kid's just a Luddite. Or has secret stock in an auto insurance agency.)

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.