Most clients we engage with are really enthusiastic about testand learn. Most will have undertaken some form of testing in their CRM Marketingcampaigns but few are really learning from their testing or are failing to putthe learning into practice. So how do you avoid the pitfalls of undertaking testand learn initiatives?

 1.  Put the time, effort and resources into learning

Whatever CRM Marketing testing you embark on theconsequence of doing so is that more time, effort and resources are going toexpended. In my experience this is often readily done to get the test set upand executed but rarely is the same time, effort and resources deployed forlooking at the results of the test and working out what to do next. If you workin a high intensity, campaign led environment then often the learning phasehappens in the middle of the next activity. While time might be put in the diaryfor a results presentation, the time to interrogate the learnings never reallyhappens.

So, the first pitfall to avoid isnot giving enough time, effort and resources to the learning phase. One way toovercome this is to build a dedicated test and learn team. The team doesn’thave to be large and can take the shape of anything from one centralized teamto one distributed across departments or anything in between. What matters isthat you have the time, effort and resources dedicated to both test andlearning.

 2.  Create a long-term CRM Marketing Test and Learn Plan

Try to create a long-term planthat covers the next 12 months. This clearly see what you are testing eachcampaign, week or month. One of the hardest part of testing is formulatingsound hypotheses and designing tests that will be meaningful whichever way theanswer falls and create a 12 month test plan allows you to scrutinise thesehypotheses and to see how all your test fit together.

It is also really important to shareyour CRM Marketing test and learn plan to drive greater acceptance and understanding of thevalue of testing and to get everyone to adhere to it.

 3.  Test the things that will have the biggestimpact

Make sure that what you are testingwill deliver real benefits. It is often to get carried away with the idea oftesting everything rather than the things that matter. As I said earlier inthis post, testing takes time, effort and resources so you need to test wisely.If your company is new to testing then make sure you test the big things first.

 4.  Make sure the tests are scalable

If your idea for CRM Marketing testing seems to have merit, you’ll need to work out ifthe test can be rolled out. Is the test going to end up being a one-and-done,or can it be repeated? I have often found this to be a problem with testingdata or a target audience, the selection was too niche and so there was littlescope to roll out the test to a wider audience. The same can be true with testsaround content or creative ideas, if the test is too granular or specific thenoften the learning can’t be acted upon.

5. Try not to test more than one thing at a time

There is also a temptation oreven pressure to test multiple things in one test. This is invariably a baddecision and often results in the test being a waste of time as you may notknow what has worked, Try to deploy strict A/B or split testing methodologywhere only one variable is changed between the control and test variant, thisespecially true if you are new to testing.

There are times when it makesmore sense to test multiple variables rather than a single variable. This is aprocess called multivariate testing. However, you will need more sophisticated measurementcapabilities and interpretation of results can often be less definite. So forme when it comes to CRM Marketing testing I always encourage sticking to the KISS principle.

Further Reading

If you have mastered the art of developing valid and scalable test, learn and refine strategies, then you may want to know how to measure CRM ROI at a customer level - I wrote a post on this recently - you can read it here.