Are You Making Marketing Decisions Like Bill Polian?

This week, the NFL voted to change how sudden-death overtime is handled during playoff games .

There's a ton of factors that lead to this decision, but the key factor behind this latest change comes from rock hard data. As Bill Polian, the president of the Indianapolis Colts, states, "Plenty of people on the committee, myself included, are so-called traditionalists. I am proud to be one. But once you saw the statistics, it became obvious we had to do something ."

Polian is referring to the 15 years worth of data that has been collected since the kick-off distance rule was changed, which has the ball start on the 30 yard line instead of the 35 yard line. This 5 yard change started a trend where the receiving team had slightly better field position. When you take a look at the numbers, nearly 59.8% of the time, the team that wins the overtime coin toss and takes possession of the ball will win the game, and an astounding 34.4% of all overtime wins were coming on this first possession.

From a pure numbers standpoint, if a playoff game has made it all the way to overtime, the split between winning and losing the game shouldn't be skewed so far towards winning the coin toss, and the NFL has voted to change this ruling.

This Blog isn't About Football, its About Marketing

When you look at everything you do with your marketing budget, ask yourself "Why am I doing this?". If the answer you give yourself is "Because we've always done this", make sure you look at the data.

How To Question Your Marketing Budget

To get answers that help improve business, it is important to ask the right questions. Here are a few questions that can help when you are thinking about making changes to your marketing budgets.

• Is this effort and money driving traffic?
• Is that traffic becoming leads?
• Is the sales team closing those leads as customers?
• What is my best lead source?
• What is my cost-per-lead for each marketing activity?
  

Don't let traditionalist tendencies get in the way of radical changes that can improve your bottom line. Follow the data. Stick with strategies that work and abandon ones that don't

Stop waiting for your turn to receive the ball when you lost the sudden-death coin toss.