Marketing and Schrodinger's Cat?

Being a former geek (and still trying to retain my geek credentials) I like to watch Through the Wormhole to help me live vicariously through these great scientists. So this is my attempt to combine 2 of my favorite subjects (physics and marketing) and somehow not alienate either the marketing folks who read this and the physics folks (assuming either marketing or physics folks read this blog)

On one of the recent shows they explain the famous Schrodinger's Cat paradox (for those that are unfamiliar with this paradox click here). In this case the cat is both alive and dead and you don't know what state the cat is in until you open the box.

This reminds me a lot of how some folks approach marketing. They don't know if their efforts and dollars are effective because until they "open the box" on the results. But many of them don't bother to even open the box and think that they are succeeding!

So this ends my poor attempt at comparing quantum mechanics and marketing...but for some reason I want to continue typing away.

So don't forget it isn't marketing unless you have a goal in mind at the beginning and that you measure yourself against that goal. After you measure your results you now know whether or not achieved your goal, but one question still remains...Why? Why did you achieve your goal? (which is different than "What did you do to achieve your goal?"). You have to think about both.

For example, let's say your goal is to get more paying customers and you determine the best way to measure that goal is to compare the number of paying customers you get this month vs. what you got last month and the same month 1 year ago. So far this is pretty easy! Let's say you decide that in order to achieve your goal you will:

• Drive more people to the purchase page
• Have a 1 month special discount

Great you now have your tactics down. At the end of the month you look at the numbers and you have achieved your desired results. You can point back to your tactics to help you answer the question about what you did to achieve your goal. Great! Now ask yourself why did more people visit the purchase page and why did they decide to purchase? What factors drove them to convert? Suddenly the answer is not as clear...it could be any one of the following:

• The lower price
• The features of your product 
• Dissatisfaction with their current provider

 Or it could be any combination of the 3??

Once you understand the why it can impact your tactics in the future to help you refine your marketing.