5 Things Your Marketing Can Learn From Usain Bolt

Just in time for Rio, Behavioral Marketing Specialist, Simon, explains what your marketing campaigns can learn from the fastest man in the world.
To beat your competition, you simply have to be 1% better than everyone else. Don’t believe me? During the 2012 Olympics, Usain Bolt’s nearest competitor was just 1% behind him in terms of time, yet no-one remembers his name.
There are several similarities between the success of your marketing campaigns and Usain’s routines, some are obvious, others not quite as clear…

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1 Set Targets

Everyone’s favorite 100m sprinter is a famously laid back character on race day, however you can be sure he’s deadly serious when setting his goals for his next competition. It’s no different for your marketing campaigns.
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By setting targets you’ll be able to ensure the campaign is focusing on the right metric and measure its performance.

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2 Planning

Athletes aren’t just given a gold medal, they spend years training and planning for the Olympics to make sure they give their best performance.
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While it doesn’t take years (more like days and weeks), marketing does require careful planning to make sure your campaigns perform well.

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3 Consistent Elite Performance

With six Olympic gold medals to his name, there’s no doubt Usain Bolt know’s how to consistently perform at the highest level. You should demand the same from your marketing campaigns.
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There’s no use in your targets and planning if the tools and technology behind your campaigns aren’t reliable. Make sure your campaigns are properly fueled!

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4 Analyze Your Stats

With the targets and goals set (a nice simple “gold medal” for Usain), you should be able to effectively measure the performance (and hopefully success) of your campaigns.
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Are you increasing online sales? Has your database grown as expected? Is your average order value getting the boost you wanted?

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5 Don’t Settle

You can bet your last dollar that Bolt and his team pour over his race-day stats to spot where he can improve and become even faster. It’s probably the reason he broke the Olympic record in his second games in 2012.
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With this approach applied to your campaigns, you’ll begin to spot opportunities to test to try and make incremental improvements. Which creative or subject line performs best? What’s the perfect time to target your shoppers? It’s all about continuous optimization!

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Photo credit: drcliffordchoi via Visual Hunt / CC BY