When difficult marketing decisions are easy — Kelford Labs Daily

“There are two things that can make a decision hard: one, you don’t have enough information to make the decision or you don’t fully understand your values—let’s set that aside. Two ... the options are really close, and you can’t decide between the two.

Here the decision is really easy because it doesn’t matter too much which you choose; you should just be flipping a coin.”

— Decision scientist and former professional poker player, Annie Duke

I try, I really do. But sometimes I get a little frustrated.

Usually it happens when someone is trying to decide between marketing ideas.

I’ve had friends trying to decide between a starting a newsletter, or a podcast.

Between experimenting with Google Ads or promoted LinkedIn posts.

Or between two good options for homepage intro copy.

They want to make sure their decision is perfect, which means they don’t make any decision at all.

Instead, they just go round and round in circles, not getting anywhere but dizzy, and not actually doing anything but worry about what might happen should they ever actually act.

All I want to say is, “Just try something instead of endlessly talking about it!” but what comes out of my mouth is, “I understand, but it’s important to remember that multiple good options isn’t actually a problem.”

Yes, sometimes there are ways to make a better decision.

You can assess your target audience, your creative capabilities, and your resource capacity, and choose the option that fits best. Because, like Annie Duke says, sometimes you just don’t have enough information, or you’re not sure about your priorities. So that can take time to figure out.

But we’re usually not talking about that.

Usually, we just have multiple good ideas at once, and the only way to know for sure which one is best for us is to actually try them.

That’s a good thing, not a problem. It means we have more potential avenues for success, we just have to follow them for a while and see which one is best.

So, when you’re confronted with multiple good marketing options, choosing any is often the right path. Flip a coin, if you have to.

Did you know that if you ask Siri (and, I assume, any Android-based assistant) to flip a coin, it will give you the result? You don’t even need to go find some change.

The thing is to narrow down your options, and then start trying them. Give them time to work, and give them your best efforts, and then assess the results and keep going or move on.

Because, usually, our really difficult marketing decisions are actually easy.

And all we need to do is start.

Reply to this email to tell me what you think, or ask any questions!

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