Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [111]
Thursday: Test Your Persuasive Message
Too many times it is assumed that taglines and benefit statements, especially when new, have been crafted well and are effective. However, without user feedback, there is no way to know what major flaws may rest just under the surface or if the words being used are not emotionally powerful enough to create action. Everything may look pretty and work on paper, but nothing can substitute for actually getting customers’ opinions and feedback.
I’ve worked with many firms to establish testing and measuring programs. Few, if any, regularly talk and interact with their end users in order to improve their marketing. Only a few have actually tested their benefit statements and sales copy with users. Just because it is a website does not mean that user testing is not necessary. Unfortunately, most website owners are more willing to criticize their users for being ignorant than assuming responsibility for a poorly crafted marketing message. Unfortunately for them, the Web is very democratic; users vote with a simple mouse click. If they can’t understand your tagline or decipher user benefits, they simply will not respond. The value of user feedback and surveys is to learn their expectations and respond to their concerns and expectations. This will enable you to develop a clear tagline and valuable benefit statements based on actual user feedback and supported by analytic data.
If your site is being “improved” by a company without data to back up the changes or without data in place to measure the changes, then there is really no reason to continue. Why pay for changes that will not or cannot have effective measurement to determine whether the changes were worth the price?
User testing is destructive by nature. It first destroys your preconceived notions about your marketing; it then destroys parts of the marketing and website itself in order to make it better. Simply marketing a website live as soon as it is finished does not mean that your marketing message is correct and complete. This is the most dynamic media in the last millennium because it offers a constant feedback and refinement capability. By testing your message, layout, or offer, a business can grow market share within weeks, just by adjusting to visitor behavior and feedback.
Consider the case of one of my consulting clients, Freedom Health, who provides health products for the equestrian market. Its online marketing strategy was based primarily in education. Visitors to the website would see studies, medical tests, and product information that was nearly overwhelming to the casual horseperson. Despite the dozens of high-profile industry testimonials that were available on the site, users tended to be on the site for short amounts of time and rarely contacted the company.
Freedom Health sought to improve its messaging, because it realized its message was not being heard, nor was it building business. Its message was made up of attempting to educate horse owners on equine digestion, diets, and health concerns, which was not producing effective results online. The company conducted online surveys with current users, past users, and nonusers to gain insight about their message and customer perceptions. In doing so, they realized their audience perceived a different value of the product than what was being marketed.
This is where listening to the customer can make a significant impact on your marketing. Freedom Health took the time to consider the customer attitudes toward its product, and in doing so, the company learned more about its current customers and its target audience. Freedom Health took this information and refined its message to a simpler, targeted emotional statement that would resonate with the expressed needs of the customer base.
Even changing their tagline from “Success from the inside out” to “My horse at its best” resonated much more effectively with the audience, because it captured the relationship between horse and rider, as