We did a marketing program a few weeks back that was, by all accounts, very successful.  We got a great ROI with immediate sales opportunities, and an excellent set of leads in our core target market with which to build our database.

The only problem?  I have no idea why it worked.

It wasn’t that different from things we’ve done in the past. We marketed to a similar audience, with similar messaging, over similar media.

The thing about marketing is that at some point, it needs to become repeatable.  At some point, it can’t just be about finding something that works and getting excited, it has to be about finding something that works, getting excited, and then figuring out how to do it again. And again. And again and again and again.

Much like you can’t trust scientific results that are not replicable, you can’t build a marketing strategy around programs that are not scalable.  There are some easy wins available early in the game, but at some point scalability becomes just as important as success, because the economics of not having scalable marketing programs don’t work anymore.

So I’m off to analyze the project more completely.  Was our follow-up better?  Did we market on a different day of the week?  Was the offer worded differently?  The CTA color different?  Or has something changed externally in the market that is driving a different response to the same offer?

Because until I know the answer – know why this was successful so I can execute it again – I can’t truly call it a success.