I’m a baseball fan, a huge baseball fan. Okay, my husband and I plan our life and our kids’ lives around baseball season. We like baseball because, even with the recent scandals, it can teach us all valuable life lessons. I’ve also noticed that baseball can teach us lessons about how to be better marketers.

Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned from baseball that can be applied to marketing:

On-base percentage is a key performance indicator

In baseball, you can’t score a run if you don’t even make it on base. Therefore, on-base percentage is an important indicator of success.

In the marketing world, your email messages cannot be read and acted upon if they don’t even make it to the inbox. So email deliverability is a key performance indicator. Make sure you’re doing everything in your power to improve the deliverability of your email marketing campaigns.

Reputation is everything

Think of Mark McGwire. Even people who don’t know much about baseball know who Mark McGwire is. He was the "Homerun King". He was perceived as a man of integrity, a family guy. And while I’m sure he’s a nice person, his reputation is now tarnished – he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs and he wasn’t all that contrite about it. So if Mark McGwire is the pitchman for a product, how likely is the average person to buy that product? Not very likely.

The same premise holds true for email and online marketing. If someone has had a bad experience with your company – either online or offline – that person will be less likely to respond to future offers and more likely to tell others about their negative experience. This plays to your company’s reputation and reduces results. Except in baseball it takes three strikes to make an out; in marketing, you generally have one chance to make or break your reputation with prospects and customers. So make every pitch fat and over the plate!

Metrics drive decision-making

Baseball is a statistics-driven sport. Decisions about which pitcher to recruit or which defensive players to cut are based almost purely on metrics like earned run average and fielding percentage.

The same approach should be taken in marketing organizations: measure everything and make data-driven decisions to improve results.

Winning takes more than money

Sure, there are baseball franchises who have won more World Series championships than others, and they have a seemingly unlimited budget to pay for talent. And it’s certainly true that it takes money to make money. But there are plenty of examples of baseball teams – and marketing campaigns – that cost a lot but didn’t produce results.

It stands to reason that if $1 generates $100, $100 will generate $10,000. But throwing money at a marketing program isn’t enough to make it successful. You need to follow best practices so that you:

a) Go after your target audience

b) Invest the right amount of money and resources

c) Make data-driven decisions about the marketing program

d) Optimize results and ROI

When all else fails, focus on mechanics

It happens to even the best batters: sooner or later, they fall into a slump and can’t hit the baseball. And every time this happens, the hitting coaches give one piece of advice: focus on mechanics. In other words, go back to basics (and stop trying to do too much).

This is a great tenet for marketers as well. When all else fails, focus on marketing mechanics, like:  

• Keep the needs and pain points of your audience in mind.
• Use proven messaging, mediums and offers.
• Test your way to success.

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About the Author

Cathi Mason is director of marketing programs for Lyris. Her team is responsible for executing programs that delivery quality leads to the sales team.

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