A few weeks ago, I talked about an A/B test that showed significant results even though there was no difference between A and B, just random chance.  But that’s not the biggest challenge with AB testing.

Don’t get me wrong, AB testing is better than no testing.  We have to keep testing and working to refine our message and our tactics.

But incremental progress sometimes isn’t enough.

Let’s say you want to climb the highest mountain.  Your strategy is to walk out your front door and travel to the highest point that you can see.  From there, you look out from the hill and you find the highest point you can see from there.  You repeat this until you can no longer find a higher point.

If you were to do this in the village where I grew up (Greendale, WI) with a good set of binoculars, you would end up at the highest point in Milwaukee County: Hales Corners, WI – elevation 868 feet.

Yes, you would be farther up than you started.  That is progress.  But Kilimanjaro it’s not.

This is what mathematicians call local optimization.  It gets you to a higher place.  It’s the world of A/B testing, management by spreadsheet, RFM segments, and looking at tactics and calling them a strategy.  It is, in a word, incremental.

Incremental is fine as long as you start off well.  If you are already in the Himalayas, you might find Everest or K2 with your incremental actions.

But as an industry, our cup runneth not over.  Rather, our bucket leaketh under.

What’s the alternative?  It’s what is called global optimization.  It is trying new things; it is disrupting the normal way of doing business.  In our analogy, it’s searching outside of Wisconsin for your highest point.

It’s understanding that the solutions that got you to this point aren’t the solutions that will get you away from this point.

The way we’ve thought about direct marketing is by communication or channel.  It’s time to start thinking about it by person.  So what does that look like?

It starts with getting data on the attitudes on your donors and prospective donors – needs, wants, motives, and preferences.  It’s getting feedback at every possible interaction and using that feedback both to increase donor satisfaction and to increase giving from that donor.  And it’s organizing around providing quality donor experiences tailored to the donor, instead of shortcuts for the convenience of the organization.

This can’t be done at the A/B test level and with A/B test thinking.  Don’t abandon those, certainly.  There will always be a place for local optimization.  But it helps to be in the right neighborhood first.

If you are interested in how some nonprofits have been able to test new ideas beyond A/B testing, we’re having three free Webinars this month. We’d love to have you join us and ask any questions you have.

Together, we can explore new continents in search of our global best.  And we can have fun in the exploration.