The folly of blindly depending on tracking, testing, and metrics
Published: Sun, 12/15/19
“Some actually believe that these qualities [commitment and dedication to the art form] that I’m talking about can be replaced by algorithms and formulas and business calculations, but please remember it’s all an illusion...”
Maybe this isn’t directly related to marketing & business.
But, it is related enough to serve as a reminder of the dangers of being enslaved to, 100% dependent upon, and making all your decisions based on “metrics” — and how doing so may make you a million, but can also prevent you from making hundreds of millions.
Example:
The late, great Stan Lee and Marvel Comics.
The publisher Martin Goodman in the early 60’s was a slave to metrics and sales stats and trends. His whole business model was “see what kind of comicbooks are selling, flood the market with similar titles until it no longer works, rinse and repeat.”
And he became a very “rich” man doing that.
But, it wasn’t until Stan Lee went completely against all that when Martin Goodman became a truly *wealthy* man when, in one last act of defiance in working for a soul-less company dependent on metrics, stats, and trends… Stan Lee wrote the Fantastic Four, followed by Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men, etc — none of which were created out of anything even remotely related to metrics or trends whatsoever. Today those brands are collectively worth multiple billions of dollars.
George Lucas did the same with Star Wars.
Sci-fi was not "in" when he made the first movie. And almost none of the Hollywood testing, tracking, metrics, and audience analytics of the time thought it would be all that fruitful.
A more down-to-earth example:
I’ve never had my biggest breakthroughs due to metrics or testing.
Not one single blessed time.
It’s always been by having a dialogue with my list & audience, and interpreting what they want to buy — without them ever having to tell me, or ever looking at a spreadsheet — by being in consistent & persistent contact with them, observing what they say & do, and combining that with my own interests, brand, positioning, and personal intellectual & creative pursuits.
Here are offers I’d never have created if I relied on “metrics”:
* The Email Players newsletter
* Copy Troll
* Copy Slacker
* Brand Barbarian
* Infotainment Jackpot
* All 3 of my “Villains” Books
* Email Client Horde
* Breakneck Content
* Email Players List Swell
* Affiliate Launch Copynomicon
In other words:
Every single book & newsletter issue I publish...
Not to mention 10-Minute Workday, or the online Checkout platform I am gearing up to sell with my pals Jack Born & “Email Players” subscriber Troy Broussard. In fact, about the only offer that is based on metrics I have anything to do with is the other two tech companies I recently bought into with Troy creating mobile Apps. And don’t even get me started on the book I got frying up teaching my publishing model next year. No test or metric has told me to write it. Nor has anyone outright asked for it. Nor is there anything like it being sold anywhere as precedent, because there is no other “me” anywhere. But, I suspect it will be the biggest selling and most profitable offer I ever sell to my list - even though it'll be priced into the stratosphere, and even though there is a very long list of people I will not allow to buy it when it launches.
We shall see…
Anyway, am I saying metrics aren’t important?
Or to ignore them?
Or that you shouldn’t bother with life time value, sales figures, stick rates (if you sell continuity), and other important metrics?
No!
You do need to know this intel ultimately.
Especially if you are using paid advertising, where you must.
Plus, there is truth to the ol what isn’t tracked can’t be measured shtick. And, incidentally, the online checkout platform we are still building will do just that for people, including eventually (down the line) having some extremely deep metrics I won’t go into here — none of our competition understands, or are even capable of thinking of, going by how they set their platforms up — behind the scenes, that will work even for caveman-like luddites such as myself.
But the point is this:
There are forces at work far more important than metrics.
Forces you can’t control or direct via tech & spreadsheets & analytics alone.
I am referring to a “sensitivity” to your list & audience... combined with your unique brand, marketplace positioning, attributes, appeal, strengths, and other peculiarities you can only effectively use by having constant — and I would argue daily — contact with your market, your audience, and your list.
Something email lets you play like a fiddle.
And, this is especially true if your business also has its own App — where you can communicate with your audience, list, and clients in intimate ways even email can’t do.
Speaking of which:
The webinar my business partner in the new App companies I mentioned above (Troy Broussard) is putting on about how to get your own $100k quality professional business app for pennies on the dollar - along with ways to monetize such an App - is tonight at 8:00 EST.
If you missed yesterday’s email about this, see the PS below.
It really only applies to businesses that make at least 6 figures per year, and is wholly inadequate for anyone else.
You still have some time to register for it via the NON-tracking link below:
http://www.EmailPlayers.com/membrandt
(There will be no replay.)
Ben Settle
P.S. Here are the details of the webinar if this subject interests you:
===
Recently, I mentioned buying ownership in 3 different software ventures this year.
I described one of them a couple months ago already.
(A checkout platform for subscription businesses - not launched yet.)
But, a few people have asked about the other pies elBenbo’s bony fingers are plunged into now?
For now, I’ll just say this:
One of my new ventures creates high-quality, personally branded, and fully functional & loaded & listed (in the Apple/Google stores) Apps for businesses. An App that is yours, that you can sell products & services with, deliver multi-media content with, and connect to your audience & list with in intimate ways even email can't do. Plus, do it without you having to find, curate, communicate with, and babysit a team of programmers in a 3rd world country… or shell out the $100k to have one that works beyond some superficial “OMG! Watch my new YouTube video in my App!” way, and that doesn’t look like it was created by an 11-year old with an iPad.
All of which brings me to the point:
My business partner in this caper is “Email Players” subscriber Troy Broussard.
He's been selling, streamlining, and perfecting this App service for some 2 years.
But, while I am still building out the emails, sales copy, etc to sell it proper in 2020 (it's all been merely word of mouth sales for 2 years to his best clients only — as he worked out bugs and perfected it — all while at an insanely low price compared to what it's worth)… plus am still in the process of getting my own App using our own service (shooting for mid January)… we got to talking about offering it to the few people in my Horde who *already* know they might want their own App at the current underpriced deal. A price that is still too high for any business not already making 6 figures per year, but is still far less than you will be able to get it at in just two short weeks from now.
If you want the gritty details on all this, here they be:
1. Troy is holding a webinar tomorrow (Sunday, December 15th) at 8:00 EST explaining how to use such a tool to potentially get thousands — or even tens of thousands — worth of new sales & fees over time, as well as how to get your very own $100k quality business App (from us, of course) for what comes out to basically pennies on the dollar, and definitely way less than it will cost in just a matter of days when 2020 hits
2. The webinar will cover everything, including Q&A if needed
3. This is a blatant sales pitch and demo webinar for people who already want their own App and want to see what their options are — not a phony “there’s nothing for sale!” webinar or whatever, expect to be pitched
4. There will be no replay, so don’t ask
5. Despite it not being nearly as expensive as it will be in just a couple weeks, realize having your own App through us is still going to be quite an investment even beyond the large upfront free (monthly maintenance ain’t cheap) & takes a lot of time & leg work to get it up and running on your part as well as on Troy’s part
6. Since it’s a very personalized service that takes Troy around 20-25 total hours on average to personally manually set up for each client, there is a very real limit to how many customers Troy can physically begin the onboarding process for in the next two weeks... especially with the holidays coming up.
What that means is this:
Even if you are on the webinar… even if you see the vision for it & want to take big, wet bite into our diabolical App fruit… and even if you were to somehow show up at Troy’s house & try to shove your money in his face… only a small handful of people will be able to take advantage of this at it’s current price.
Later, we will be able to onboard more people more seamlessly.
But, that won’t be until it’s at least twice as expensive as it is now.
In other words:
I would not recommend procrastinating contacting Troy if this interests you after watching the webinar. In fact, one of my friends is procrastinating right now, probably thinking he has all the time in the world… and is going to end up paying twice as much — maybe more — due to his procrastinating.
Good for us (more scratch in our pocket), but not so good for him…
Thus, time truly is money with this.
If you think you got the right stuff, here’s the webinar registration URL:
http://www.EmailPlayers.com/membrandt
Ben Settle
P.S. Do not direct any questions to me, if you have any questions watch the webinar and ask Troy during the appropriate time.