We all make mistakes. We distribute campaigns with typos and
errors. We gamble on new rental lists or
lists that have inconsistent histories and they don’t generate responses. We try new technologies and strategies that
don’t work out.
What do you do when you or your
marketing team makes a mistake or endures a failure? Who takes responsibility? Who takes action? How do you handle the problem and prevent it
from reoccurring?
First, make sure the mistake or
error was made honestly, not
out of laziness, sloppiness, or indifference. Marketers who don’t put a legitimate effort
into your marketing activities create bigger problems than a misspelled word in
the catalog and need to be dealt with immediately. However, errors made out of good intentions
and sincere efforts should be regarded as a learning experience and shared,
productively, with the whole team.
Then, work as a department to correct
the mistake and set up new protocols to prevent the same mistake or failure
from happening again.
If a typo was overlooked or wrong
information was included, double check that the promotion went through the
prescribed proofing channels. Sometimes
the individual working on a campaign becomes blind to errors because they know
the material by heart. Require all
materials to be read by at least one other set of eyes.
If a risk didn’t work out and joins
a growing list of other risks that didn’t work out, reexamine your situation,
your resources, and the gambles you’ve made.
Then, use that information to establish new guidelines for determining
how much and how often you’re willing and able to make these types of
decisions. Risks must be taken to expand
and grow, but when they consistently far short of breaking even, the risk for
the organization overall becomes greater than the potential reward and should
be stopped.
You can’t prevent things from going
wrong in business. But you can learn to
view glitches and poor choices positively and use them to make better decisions
in the future.
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