When I was a kid, I treasured my poster of Neil Armstrong standing on the moon. I wanted to be an astronaut. Armstrong was my hero.
Last week, I saw a picture of Armstrong’s spacesuit. Some guy posted it on Facebook next to a picture of a lunar footprint.
The spacesuit boot had no treads. It was smooth as silk.
The footprint had large grooves as if made by a boot with big ol’ treads.
Below the pictures was the following: “Hey…Neil Armstrong’s astronaut suit, preserved in a museum…doesn’t match up with his footprints on the moon!”
Boom! Take that suckers!
Smooth-bottomed boot. That’s a fact.
Treaded footprint. That’s a fact.
1 + 1 = 2. The moonwalk never happened!!!!!
Fact + Fact = Proof. Right!?
Not so fast.
Before stepping onto the moon, Armstrong and other astronauts slipped their boots into “overshoes.”
The shoes provided extra protection and…
…you guessed it…
…they had heavy treads.
The treads match those footprints on the moon. That’s another fact.
So…
Fact + Fact = Ill-Informed Conspiracy Theory.
Fact + Fact + Fact = Conspiracy Theory Debunked.
Facts are just building blocks.
How we interpret them depends on our own biases (i.e. The government lies to us so the government faked the moon landing).
Same goes with marketing.
Fact: 25% of recipients opened your email.
Fact: 5% of those who opened clicked the key link in that email.
Some people assume email marketing doesn’t work.
They take those building block facts and construct the following story: 75% didn’t open the email + 95% didn’t click = Proof of Failure
But here are some other facts:
Of those who clicked, three scheduled a meeting with you…
…and one converted to a customer…
…and revenue from that customer exceeded the cost of your email campaign by 10x.
Boom! Proof of failure becomes 10x profit.
The moral of these stories: Facts don’t lie. But WE lie to ourselves by compiling facts to support an incomplete or ill-informed story.
In business, that can mean the difference between success and failure.
Tom
MarketVolt
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