The Adaptive Marketer

Yes, We Have To Build The Business Case For Innovation

Posted on 21. Jun, 2010 by Robert Rose in Content Marketing, Online Marketing

So, here’s a fun one.   Walk around your office and ask everybody three questions.   The first one is: “Should companies be innovative?”   I’ll take a wild ass guess and predict a 90%+ response in the affirmative.

Then, independent of the answer, immediately ask the next one – “Has our company ever been innovative?” Here, you may get that confused-4PM-I-Haven’t-Had-My-Snickers-Bar  look.  They may ask “Do you mean are we innovative right now?”   And, you’ll reply “no, I’m asking have we ever been innovative? Ever?”

Here, your mileage may vary – but I’ll bet you one thing will be 100% true.  Of those who say “yes” when you ask them the third and final question -“when?” – everyone will cite a success.

See – everybody LOVES innovation – You know, just so long as it worked.

Nobody wants to be the dopey guy who said “yes” to the new product that sold five units.  As a friend said to me recently – “I’d rather get a 0 on a test, rather than a 22.  Because a 22 means I tried“.

Okay, So Here’s An Innovation Test?

You’re the head of product marketing at a web company. It’s six years ago (circa 2004 or 2005). You’re quite successful. You have three choices about an “innovative” new direction for your web site.  You can:

1. Launch a section that aggregates print catalogs and presents users with the best prices across online stores.
2. Launch a site feature that allows people to set up their own personal online email on your site
3. Launch a section that allows people to ask any question they want – and your audience can then answer and get points for the best answer.
4. Launch a section that allows businesses to create coupons that will display in your site for free

Which one would you choose?

Well, if you’re Google – you chose all four.   Google Catalogs launched around 2006 and searched through print catalogs.   GMail went beyond invitation-only in 2007 (hard to believe isn’t it).  Google Answers launched a bit earlier (2003) and was completely shut down by 2006.  And, finally, Google Coupons is a service that’s been around since 2006 and is technically still alive.  But it’s a bit like the Chupacabra of services.  If you see one, no one will believe you.

So, there it is – four innovative ideas.  Three “failures” and one success.

Innovation – There’s No App For That

As marketers we’re the first to say we want innovation – as long as we can get “best practice” results and look at a couple of case studies. How many times have you heard (or asked) from an agency “who else like us is doing this?”   Okay WTF?   Any agency that walks in and promotes a strategy’s value as being “innovative” but then cites the four other clients they’ve done this for, and their “success stories” doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.

So…..

How Do We Build The Business Case For Innovation

It seems like a silly question – but it’s not.  Building the business case for innovation is getting permission to fail.  There’s no way to prove ROI with innovation – because by definition – it’s not been proven before.   In order to build more innovative and disruptive successes in your marketing, you’ve got to have the capability to tolerate more failure.

Some ideas:

1. Build Small, Adaptive Experiments Separate From The Core
   Allow a small experimental team or effort that can operate outside the bounds of your traditional measurement schemes.  A skunk-works?  Yes, but by whatever name, dedicate a small percentage of your budget to fund these efforts – and make it a point to NOT measure it against traditional factors.   EVERY single thing done in this area should have permission to fail.   Maybe it’s just one or two things – but let it be innovative, and truly new.

   This puts a little more pressure on your budget (I know).  But try this out.  Make a promise to your Boss/CEO/CFO.   For every $1 you save through marketing efficiency, tell them you want to put half into an innovation fund.  Point out that 20% of every Google employee’s time goes into just this kind of innovation.  And, all you are looking for is to spend what you save.

2. Generate New Types of Networking Groups For Innovation
   There’s a great book called Open Innovation by Henry Chesbrough.  In it, he and his other editors discuss the idea of designing innovation through both internal AND external sources.   Consider setting up a group of people you don’t otherwise communicate with and generating new marketing ideas.  The IT nerd in the corner might just have a good idea.
3. Build An Actual Innovation Business Plan & Share It
   This one seems a bit counterintuitive – and in another post I plan to detail it further.  But building a structured process for innovation is more than gathering a new group in a conference room and throwing sticky notes up on a wall (although that’s fun).  Consider building a structure and plan for your innovation.  The contents of this plan should be:
   1. The Challenge? What challenges are we trying to solve?
   2. The Ultimate Outcome – What is our dream outcome of this process
   3. The Risk – What’s the risk if we fail?
   4. Who’s Involved – Who’s unique perspective to we want here – and (if internal) permission from their managers to participate
   5. The Budget – How much will we spend on this endeavor?
   6. Deliverables – Okay I know this is hard to know.  But setting goals is the only way to measure any progress.  One new idea per month?  With Implementation Plan?   One experiment per week?  What are you shooting for?
   7. The Big Red “Oh Shit” Button – If life (or business issues) get in the way, how can we push a big red button without disbanding the whole idea of the innovation business plan.   A missed quarter, or an unexpected client departure or a cut in marketing can be the death knell of these processes.  How can we mitigate that?
   8. Action Plans – how will we execute each experimental idea and how long will we give it to work or not.  Develop a template (format not each plan) for this.

As Yoda Says – Do Or Do Not – There Is No Try

So, in the end, the reality is you may or may not get “permission” to be able to do this in your organization.

But, here’s the thing.  If you try – and you succeed – you will start to craft a job that is so much more than just incrementally decreasing costs in marketing spend and managing a budget.   And if you try – and you fail – well…. guess what you will have innovated.

And that’s something you can take with you wherever you go.

See how that works.

Thoughts?

Photo Credit: trixnbooze

Tags: Innovation, Marketing Innovation