10 Things I Learned from Joanne: Lesson 5

The Stupidity of Ignorance

The Set Up

Joanne and I have a regularly scheduled call once a week. Joanne O'Connell is the co-author of the book we recently published together, Intentional Marketing: A Systematic Approach to Optimizing Performance.

She thinks our conversations are about our book, including how to sell more copies and generate more clients. This is true, but there's more to it. What she doesn't realize is that the main reason for our conversation is for me to listen and learn. I've said this before: Joanne is brilliant. As a result, I learn something from her during every conversation.

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Maybe she already knows this. Likely, she does. Actually, I know she knows. But this fact doesn't stop either of us. We continue to have conversations every week, and I continue to learn.

The Problem

A few weeks ago, I asked her a few questions, all related to each other:

• What problem are we solving?

• Why should someone buy our book?

• Why should someone implement the principles of the Intentional Marketing System?

Since I helped write the book, you might think I would know the answers to these questions. It's true; I have answers, but these are my answers. I was curious about how Joanne would answer these questions.

Typically, when I ask Joanne questions, she has one of two responses:

• "I'm not sure. Let me think about this and we can talk about it next week."

• She pauses for a bit and says, "This is what I think..." and then articulates her point of view.

This time, when I asked her about the problem we were solving, she didn't hesitate. She raised her voice and said, "Ignorance!" Her answer was clear and to the point. As you can guess, this is one of the traits I love about Joanne. She says what she's really thinking and what she's passionate about.

The Solution

"People can do better," she added. Then she listed about 10 things that marketers and business owners can do to improve marketing and generate revenue:

• Know your product and why people are buying it (or why they should buy it)

• Ask customers what they think

• And not just customers. Ask employees, suppliers, competitors, lapsed customers

• Look at the numbers within the Customer Acquisition Model

• Know what's happening at each level

• Be sure you understand the key components of conversion rates

• Learn how to control the measures and metrics in the model

• Learn how to improve the conversion rates

• Look at trends within the company

• Learn about trends that are happening outside the company

And that, my friends, is why you should buy our book: to not be ignorant. To be enlightened. To be smarter. To understand. To be in control.

The Master – Avinash Kaushik

Let's look at this from another perspective. Avinash Kaushik wrote the Foreword to our book. Most of you may not know who he is. I would even venture to say you may not care who Avinash is. Maybe you should. You should learn more about Avinash if any of these objectives are important:

• Understanding the importance of numbers (other than financial)

• Understanding the value of Google Analytics and how it works 

• Understanding how to analyze data

• Gaining control of your business

• Gaining control of marketing

• Growing your business

Avinash manages a blog called Occam's Razor. He writes a blog post about once a month. In addition, he has a newsletter called The Marketing <-> Analytics Intersect Newsletter. He is one of the only people I know who sells a subscription to his newsletter.

Why am I mentioning Avinash, other than the fact that he wrote the Foreword to our book? Well, the reason is that he takes the same point of view as Joanne.

Here is part of what he wrote in the Foreword:

In 1919 John Wanamaker was quoted as saying: “I know half my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.” 

As I reflect on the state of the industry, and measurement, today, early 2023, things have both become much worse and much better.

In 30% of the companies, there is the deployment of both smart marketing and sophisticated analytics. The end result is a very good sense of what the return on marketing is. If half of their marketing investments are being wasted, they know it.

In about 70 percent of the companies, there is little understanding of what is working and, if anything’s working, why it might be working. Significantly more than half of their marketing investment is being wasted.

The Problem?

Unlike in the days of Mr. Wanamaker, we have a seemingly baffling array of marketing options available to us. Email and SEO and TV and social and influencer and billboards and search and channel and video and display and park benches, and… The list is very long. Compounding that reality is the fact that you can have access to near-infinite data (almost always for free!), and yet none of this data is truly complete, and often different pools don’t tie to each other.

It has never been easier to lose a lot of money, very quickly, chasing a mirage.

Yet. There are the 30% who have figured it out.

NOTE: You can get a free copy of the Foreword and all of Part 1: The Big Picture by clicking on this link and selecting FREE PREVIEW.

The Conclusion

Today, my question for you is: “Are you and your company, part of the 30% who have figured it out or  are you part of the 70% that is IGNORANT?”

If you don’t want to be “ignorant” then consider buying our book.