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The need for speed in Internet marketing

Most of you know that I wrote a book on Internet marketing called “Do It Wrong Quickly”–but some overlook how important the “quickly” part is, because otherwise you’re just doing it wrong. The point of the book is to experiment with your marketing until something starts to work. You can’t overemphasize how important speed has become in marketing.


Think about how you end up with the right approach. You don’t know the right answer to start with—you find it by trying a number of possibilities and seeing which ones work best. The former CTO of Amazon once told me they could change a font at 9 am and by noon know if it was a mistake or not. Then they’d change it again, always searching for improvement.

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Contrast this approach with that of the average company, which redesigns their Web site once a year. If it takes ten tries to get the right font, Amazon figures that out in a few days. The average company takes ten years.
What about your company? Do you spend your time lamenting about how those new cool Web companies seem to have better ideas? Mayeb they don’t. Maybe they just execute faster. Maybe instead of studying an idea until the it whimpers and cries for mercy, they just try it. If it works, it’s a keeper. If not, well, not.

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Mike Moran

Mike Moran is a Converseon, an AI powered consumer intelligence technology and consulting firm. He is also a senior strategist for SoloSegment, a marketing automation software solutions and services firm. Mike also served as a member of the Board of Directors of SEMPO. Mike spent 30 years at IBM, rising to Distinguished Engineer, an executive-level technical position. Mike held various roles in his IBM career, including eight years at IBM’s customer-facing website, ibm.com, most recently as the Manager of ibm.com Web Experience, where he led 65 information architects, web designers, webmasters, programmers, and technical architects around the world. Mike's newest book is Outside-In Marketing with world-renowned author James Mathewson. He is co-author of the best-selling Search Engine Marketing, Inc. (with fellow search marketing expert Bill Hunt), now in its Third Edition. Mike is also the author of the acclaimed internet marketing book, Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules, named one of best business books of 2007 by the Miami Herald. Mike founded and writes for Biznology® and writes regularly for other blogs. In addition to Mike’s broad technical background, he holds an Advanced Certificate in Market Management Practice from the Royal UK Charter Institute of Marketing and is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He also teaches at Rutgers Business School. He was a Senior Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research and is now a Senior Fellow of The Conference Board. A Certified Speaking Professional, Mike regularly makes speaking appearances. Mike’s previous appearances include keynote speaking appearances worldwide

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