Boyd’s Law of Iteration: Speed beats…

From the Coding Horror Blog

This leads to Boyd’s Law of Iteration: speed of iteration beats quality of iteration.

You’ll find this same theme echoed throughout every discipline of modern software engineering:

• Unit tests should be small and fast, so you can run them with every build.
• Usability tests work best if you make small changes every two weeks and quickly discard what isn’t working.
• Most agile approaches recommend iterations no longer than 4 weeks.
• Software testing is about failing early and often.
• Functional specifications are best when they’re concise and evolving.

I believe that Boyd’s Law directly applies to today’s marketing.

• All marketing should be tested quickly and in small quantities
• Your marketing cycle conversions work bests if you make small changes approximately in intervals of twenty percent of your sale cycle and quickly discard what isn’t working.
• Most agile marketing approaches recommend iterations of no longer than 4 weeks.
• Marketing stages are about failing early and often.
• Functional specifications are best when they’re concise and evolving.

Taking a Closer look at these principles:

All marketing should be tested quickly and in small quantities. In fact, why would you not test multiple emails one day and release an entire batch the next day. Is there absolutely any reason that we are unable to do this anymore? Another example is that headlines can be tested on twitter, blogs, etc. Small business specifically should test constantly.

Your marketing cycle conversions work bests if you make small changes approximately at twenty percent of the sale cycle and quickly discard what isn’t working. I think it is difficult for put a time frame on this when we are talking in such general terms. So, what I propose is that if you look at your marketing in five stages (as shown above), you would want to make modifications within one stage at a time or twenty percent of your total sales cycle. The important thing to remember is to keep the stages flowing and not in constant flux. Modifications should be planned. Do not hinder a stage by doing these things indiscriminately and causing flow interruptions.

Most agile marketing approaches recommend iterations of no longer than 4 weeks. Again, we must determine what you normal sales/marketing cycle is and then plan accordingly. The secret to this is to shorten the cycle through these principles removing waste and creating value.

Marketing stages are about failing early and often. Marketing is the least expensive in the early stages. As you walk through the process your investment increases so your conversion should increase and maybe just maybe hold on to a lead a little longer.

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