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Focus on inputs, not outputs.

I’ve run over 100 ad campaigns in my (short) stint as an entrepreneur.

Some profitable, some complete flops, some a valuable lesson.

But even now, marketing feels like a bit of a black box.

Physically, I would describe it as floppy.

Like a swimming noodle, or a wet mop.

It has a clear shape - you can definitely use it to get things done, but it rarely does exactly what you want.

The problem is, as someone who likes clear definitions, this floppiness can be a roadblock.

Here are a couple of tips to get past this:

Be Directionally Correct.

The definition of marketing is “the process of making known”.

When I market, I tell people about my thing.

All the results and stats like CPA, CPM, Conversion rate, CTR, purchase rate, retention, etc…

They are all talking about the effectiveness of my marketing.

If the goal is to market, the goal is to let people know about my thing.

So, I can look at my day to day actions and ask: “Am I marketing?”

Some non-marketing activities that feel productive could be:

• tinkering with code

• working on my landing page copy

Whereas some marketing activities could be:

• Making a youtube video about my product

• Writing on X about WordRobin

• Running ads

This helps me differentiate between things that drive marketing efforts VS things that do not.

Focus on Inputs, not Outputs.

The ultimate output of marketing is that someone buys your product.

But this is downstream of 10,000 different things that have to happen beforehand.

If someone doesn’t buy your product, it could be that:

• They didn’t like it

• It was too expensive

• It was hot in their room and they went to get water

• Their stop came up so they got off the bus and forgot about you

If you try to figure out exactly what went wrong, you would go insane.

In order to keep going despite the lack of results, we can trick our brain by focusing on the inputs, not the outputs.

Then, the work simply becomes a process of “walking the dollar” across the bridge - AKA turning a stranger into a customer.

So instead of focusing on what doesn’t work, you focus on just letting more people know about your thing - and fixing what you can along the pathway to them becoming a customer.

What’s next?

People are signing up, and I have some exciting new features to reveal!

I’ve also started a mini-series of updates that people seem to like.

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Have a great week everyone.

Ben

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