set up a control - to lessen the bias

As a marketer, you are bombarded with all kinds of stuff coming from all sides. Sometimes, as you know - it can get confusing.

Your creative agency is telling you something. Your interactive and your media buy agencies are saying something totally the opposite.

Other groups such as your database vendor are pitching the latest and slickest tools. You're IT folks want to keep things in house.

You've incorporated findings from your market research group into your marketing strategy but you don't know if it has been effective. What is good? Is your marketing doing good?

And besides...

Who do you trust?

Take a step back and setup a control.

A control in this case is an individual or group that is there to do only one thing: help you assess and diagnose your marketing business by providing you with continual unbiased data-driven insights.

Ideally, this control an indepent source that is:

• the right solution (has the expert skill sets within the niche)
• at the right place (stays close to the marketing area - literally and figuratively)
• at the right time (the earlier in the marketing plan - the better)

More on this on the next post...