📊Data-driven: driving projects into the ground?

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Two days remain in 2024. What are you gonna do about it? 

This week may be your last chance to gather your thoughts with quiet time before the new year brings back the hectic pace of life. That’s a note to myself, too. 

I won’t keep you from that quiet place… All I’ve got for ya are quick thoughts on how everything is data-driven. So much so that most marketers are scared to try anything new because there’s no data to back up why they should try it at all. 

Then, you can take a look at the last Monday Marketing News of 2024.

Take a Chance on a New Project

This thought was seeded by a link I dropped in last Friday’s Inbox Hacking. 

Sean D'Souza talked about how starting random tiny projects can make a huge impact on your business.

His point was that there’s no perfect time to start a project. And that whether you start something new or not, you’ll look up one day and five years will have passed… then ten…

Whether you started that project or not.

If you chose to try — against all the nasty odds that the data showed you in black and white — you will have five years’ worth of podcasts produced. Or 200-plus blog entries to show for it. Or 60 video interviews, which is just one video per month over five years.

If you listened to the data that said “don’t bother trying,” then the calculations would be simpler... 

• 0 podcast episodes produced

• 0 blog entries

• 0 video interviews

Feel free to check my math.

Ignore the Data

I’ve actually started multiple podcasts over the years. Topics included: 

• Sports

• Landscaping business tips

• Funny motivational show (began as freelance gig to motivate a client’s brother)

The motivational show fired up the brother so much, he pitched the show to Dunkin’ Donuts’ to be our sponsor! 

Still, none of those projects got traction fast enough, so I gave up on them. Before they had a chance.

I woulda been better off to never have looked at the download stats for the first year. Just kept going - blind to the data.

Looking at data that shows little progress is pretty depressing. It stopped me in my tracks.

I’ve seen it stop others too. 

Another podcast I helped produce was getting large numbers of listeners. But the star of the show didn’t feel it was worth continuing.

Maybe they compared their data to other big-name podcasts, and that was a downer that drained their enthusiasm?

If we’d kept going, though, I’ve no doubt the data would have shown it was worth the effort five years down the line. 

I wonder how many projects never make it past year one because we compare our data to a project that has three or four years under its belt?

That’s like comparing a freshman linebacker in high school to a senior. The skinny freshman can’t even drive yet. The senior has a beard, could be drafted into the military, prolly has a couple of baby mamas. Apples to oranges. 

Point is this. 

I don’t like words like “data-driven.” 

Partly because it's jargon that suits sling around. But worse than that, too many projects never go from idea to execution because they’re data-driven into the ground. 

Or the project gets a five-month run, and when it doesn’t get traction, it’s dropped like a rock and labeled a failure that should’ve never been tried.

The truth is the odds are against all your new ideas and projects. Data usually backs up that truth. 

Unless you ignore the data and the odds, though, you cannot know for sure.

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Enjoy your New Year’s celebrations and be safe, Inbox Hackers. Thanks for being loyal readers. I’ll talk to y’all again on Wednesday.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin of Inbox Hacking