Isolate the CauseIsolate the Cause is a simple evaluative method in which you introduce one new tactic and (temporarily) leave all other tactics unchanged, so that you can attribute any increase in results to the new tactic. It is primarily for special situations as opposed to continuous use. How You Do ItFor example, a retailer with one location is planning to run a clearance sale on Makita power tools. He wants to use this opportunity to test the "pulling power" of a new suburban weekly newspaper.He makes a single insertion in the paper, announcing the special event. He announces the special event only via this one ad – for example, he does not put up any in-store signs or send out post cards. And he makes no change in his generic advertising. For example, he does not change his regular radio ad to mention the special event. Then, he watches the "blip" in sales or store traffic during the event. That is to say, he looks up his normal store traffic for that day of the week and time of year, and subtracts it from the traffic he recorded during the special event. He also notes the increase in sales of Makita tools. In this way, he can, with rough but useful accuracy, attribute the increased traffic and sales to the ad in the suburban weekly. Notice that he did not need to use any tracking mechanisms such as "10% additional discount with this coupon" or "come in and ask about our Makita clearance." Here's another example of a special situation. StrengthsThis method is usually inexpensive and easy to execute – provided you have a well-defined special situation.WeaknessesObviously you can't Isolate the Cause on a routine or continuous basis. And no Isolation technique will be as accurate as Tracking.Return from Isolate the Cause to Measuring What They Did
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