In Short: Starting with a strong foundation of CRO, or digital optimization, is a foundational building block to OO (organizational optimization). Experimentation caters to heightened awareness of goal focus and alignment and the development of a “we can do better” mindset. These are key ingredients to helping organizations reach new levels of success.
When one used to type #CRO in Twitter, a flag of Croatia would appear. These days when doing the same, a symbol for crypto.com appears. In the world I have been residing in for a while now, CRO means conversion rate optimization. Whether we call it experimentation, CRO or digital optimization, one thing that is clear, is that when you do “it” right – and do it at scale – it also doubles as an engine for something bigger: OO, or organizational optimization. How so?
Goal focus & alignment
Building an experimentation regimen must begin by being clear about what you are trying to improve. Thinking this part through forces us to think about goals and the more granular metrics, which in turn, help us understand how we are progressing against the defined goals. Organizations that do it right also are crystal clear about what singular goal is most critical. We can think of this as the north star metric.
Clarity on goals and their prioritization is important because it is what gets everyone swimming towards the same finish line. Different people and teams will naturally have different goals based on the nature of what their function is. But in some way, there should be some linkage between their goals and that common north star metric.
Building sound experimentation engines that are scaled to benefit multiple functional teams (and geographies, if a global organization), has a positive effect on organizational efficiency because it helps create a consistent current across the organizational waters. More simply, experimentation heightens awareness for and focus on goals and metrics. And more focus on goals and metrics will usually lead to greater process efficiencies and yield greater value for the organization.
Mindset
By definition, experimentation is an admission that we can do better. This concept does not get a lot of attention, perhaps because it sounds negative. But at LiftCentro, we think this is such an important principle – a principle that winning organizations lock into regularly. The reality is we are all lifelong learners. Some may dwell on this or enjoy learning more than others. But no one knows absolutely everything – hence the need for a practice called experimentation.
What does this have to do with OO, or organization optimization? Because organizations win when they constantly strive to get better. When they recognize that however clever, creative, smart we are, we can always do a little bit better. We can design better. We can write better. We can collaborate better. Whatever our specific craft is, we can improve in some way.
Experimentation is a framework for helping us achieve these learnings and incremental improvement in a fail-safe and efficient manner. Leverage your website traffic to inform you on what messages resonate best. Your site visitors are among your most important constituents. How they respond to the messaging should, at a minimum, factor into your decision making.
We see a healthy optimization practice as a core foundation from which to build pervasive data-driven cultures. Goal focus and mindset are two of the keystone principles between CRO and OO. For more juice on this topic, we’ve documented a punch list of keys to building a data-driven culture from a foundation of optimization.