Such a Fun Read!!

This one is fabulous (click here).

What Google and Facebook have done is this ... they've convinced feckless marketers to pay for interactions that, if the interactions disappeared, would result in orders anyway.

It's no different in the catalog industry, where boutique agencies prey on my client base via what are called "matchbacks", where you match all orders within "x" days and "y" criteria against those who received the catalog, and if the order matches via specified criteria the catalog gets credit. It's such a hopelessly WRONG methodology, one designed to protect industry vendors, paper reps, and printers. And everybody uses it, regardless. Heck, I've got hundreds of A/B tests at my disposal that prove that the methodology is hopelessly wrong and you share the results and STILL nobody cares.

Why is this the case?

In other words, why would a very smart individual willfully ignore facts? It's almost like our political situation, isn't it?

There are three phases in the evolution of this phenomenon.

1. The professional doesn't know the facts exist and trust failed metrics as facts.
2. The professional learns that facts exist and does not understand what the facts mean.
3. The professional knows what the facts mean and chooses to ignore them.

It's (3) that I'm always dealing with. Take the merchant who loves to put together 88 page catalogs. If you tell her that at least half of the orders "matched back" to the catalog will still happen anyway if the catalog is not mailed, you have a series of problems that the merchant has to deal with.

1. If the orders happen anyway, I probably have too many pages in the catalog.
2. If the orders happen anyway, I'm probably mailing the catalog to too many customers.
3. I love (1) and (2), therefore facts are taking away from me the thing I love doing.
4. Therefore, I'm not going to adhere to the facts. I will ignore the facts.
5. By ignoring the facts, I get to keep doing what I love to do.
6. And if I decide to accept the facts, then "what" do I do to replace what I've been doing? If I don't know what to do next, then I'm stuck.

It's been my experience that it is terribly hard to fight this dynamic. Nobody wants to stop doing what they love to do.


P.S.: There is a TON of profit to be had in eliminating catalog pages and catalog contacts to individual customers. So much profit that you'd be able to waste it acquiring new customers unprofitably with catalogs, protecting your future. Put your pride aside and move forward. You have a future, a promising future!!!!!