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Over at Copyblogger, Danny Iny calls bullshit on split-testing claims (and indirectly gives a lesson in snappy headline writing).
Everybody says they’re doing it. Everyone likes to pretend they’re an expert. Buzzwords and rumors abound … stories about increasing conversion rates by an order of magnitude by changing the color of a checkout button (but nobody shares the magic color!). Most importantly, nobody wants to admit that they don’t really know what they’re doing, or (gasp!) have never done it themselves. Many join the conversation without wanting to let on that they don’t even know what split testing is!
Fact is, real split-testing is hard. It’s time-intensive work that requires great precision and patience — as well as the super-human ability to overcome confirmation bias. (Continuing with his clever high-school-sex analogy, Iny says that people who are in fact split testing probably aren’t doing it very well…)
If you feel like experimenting and are willing engage in some legit science, split-testing can pay huge dividends. The key is to start with one variable at a time. (And we recommend using Google Website Optimizer — it’s free and relatively easy to use.)
But before you starting tweaking things, head over to Copyblogger to learn how to avoid making rookie split-testing mistakes. Like ending your A/B experiments, um, prematurely.
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Writing for the Times, MP Mueller examines the “surprising power” of branded schwag:
Promotional products are, some say, the oldest form of advertising. American businesses spend $20 billion a year giving away stuff with logos, according to Jerry McLaughlin, president of Branders, one of the largest sellers of promotional products online. Which is pretty good evidence that it works. Mr. McLaughlin credits the effectiveness of promotional products to centuries old cultural norms around the rule of reciprocity. “If you give something, the recipient is honor bound to give something back,” he said. “In every language and culture, research has found there are really pejorative words for people who get and don’t give back. We humans are hard wired to respond if we get something.”
The Times interviewed Robert Cialdini, author of “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” for the story. (The book is one of Kevin’s faves.) According to Cialdini’s research, small giveaways can trigger generous givebacks.
A well-known veterans’ nonprofit group, the Disabled American Veterans, is a case in point. When the group sends a mailing for contributions, Dr. Cialdini said, it gets an 18-percent response rate. When the same letter is sent with personalized address labels, which cost about eight cents, the response rate goes up to 35 percent. “For the cost of the address labels they get almost a doubling of return,” he said. “It’s very powerful rule and very small things can trigger it.”
But you have to pick the right promotional material to make it work—something memorable that complements your product and matches your customer demographic.
Have it underscore your marketing message and differentiate your company. Mr. McLaughlin recounts a computer software client who makes antivirus software. The client put its logo on boxes of condoms and sent them to information technology types with the message, “Protect yourself, protect your computers.”
Heh.
In advertising, the term ‘effective frequency’ describes the number of times a person must be exposed to an ad before responding. Although he didn’t use the term effective frequency, Thomas Smith, London businessman and author of ‘A Guide to Successful Advertising’ (1885), observed that it usually took twenty attempts to gain a new customer with an ad:
The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
The second time, they don’t notice it.
The third time, they are aware that it is there.
The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.
The point of Smith’s slightly tongue-in-cheek observation is that repetition is integral to the success of an advertisement. (He even uses repetitive language to make his point.) You could go one step further and say that repetition is integral to marketing overall. Why is repetition so powerful?
Repetitio est mater studiorum (repetition is the mother of learning)
What’s eight times six? If you know the answer, you’ve harnessed the power of repetition, one of the oldest and most effective pedagogical tools. There’s a neurological basis to those multiplication flashcards you used as a kid: repetition transfers information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory.
“Talk to anyone well versed in learning psychology, and they’ll tell you repetition is crucial,” says Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger.com. “It’s also critical in persuasive writing, since a person can’t agree with you if they don’t truly get what you’re saying.”
You’d be surprised how frequently people don’t get what you’re saying. We all know our businesses inside and out. We all know our products. We know our strengths. And we know that we’re vastly better than all of our competitors in every way. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, no. Not to everyone else. Not to your prospects. You’ve got to educate them. They must learn. Which brings us back to today’s Latin lesson: Repetitio est mater studiorum. Repetition is the mother of learning. It’s up to you to supply your prospects with flashcards (figuratively speaking).
Repetition has a bum rap. It’s often equated with boring teachers and mindless memorization. “Of course, there’s good repetition and bad,” Clark clarifies. “To stay on the good side, make your point in several different ways, such as directly, using an example, in a story, via a quote from a famous person, and once more in your summary.” And you should go beyond words: use photographs, cartoons, songs, videos, webcasts, slide shows, etc.
“The more senses you engage, the greater the potential for retention and recall. Even having a bowl of just-popped popcorn or the smell of freshly-baked cookies while learning, can make a difference,” says former video game designer Kathy Sierra.
Can you recall a time when a patient teacher explained something in class for the 47th time and — Eureka! — the light went on? Maybe he or she chose different words, or used an image or analogy to help explain it. Maybe it just took a bunch of times to get it. The takeaway for businesses? By repeating things — the same message but delivered differently — you stand a much better chance of penetrating your prospects’ prefrontal cortexes and persuading them to press the purchase button. (Did you catch that alliteration? That’s the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllable(s) of a series of words and/or phrases.)
Careful!
“Strategic repetition isn’t the same thing as content flab,” says copywriter Sonia Simone. “Repeat yourself for a reason, not just because you’re too lazy to cut pointless redundancy.” The wrong kind of repetition can annoy your audience. Worse, it can numb them to your messaging — and that’s bad for business! Again, be sure to mix things up while sticking to a consistent theme.
The ancient Greeks knew the value of repetition in oratory and rhetoric — they even went as far as to classify nine different kinds. Anaphora, for example, is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of every clause. Here’s an example of anaphora from Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.”
Here at Kutenda, we operate on a modified version of Churchill’s call to arms, and we suggest you do the same: “We shall market on the beaches, we shall market on the landing grounds, we shall market in the fields and in the streets, we shall market in the hills, we shall never surrender.”
P.S. It should be obvious that repeating a flawed or ineffective message won’t do your business much good. Effective repetition requires knowing exactly who you are, what you’re good at, how you’re different, and how you want to be perceived. For help on positioning, start with this short article from Bloomberg Businessweek: The Power of Positioning.
P.P.S. Repetition is the mother of learning.
Kevin Brown, VP of Kutenda
One of the leading providers of business management to the IT industry, Autotask–together with Kutenda, will host a free webinar offering how-to leverage the In-house IT opportunity with SMB clients, on June 21st, 2011 at 1:00pm ET.
The webinar is for IT professionals interested in leveraging the In-House IT opportunity with SMB clients. It will discuss why In-House IT is a lucrative opportunity, and how to get your foot in the door. If you would like to register please visit:
‘Attack and Conquer the In-House IT Opportunity!’
Presented by Len DiCostanzo, Sr. VP, Dean of Autotask Academy at Autotask Corporation, and Kevin Brown, Vice President at Kutenda, the webinar will teach participants:
- What IT topics SMBs constantly think
- How to approach SMBs about solving their problems with your IT solutions
- How to make the case for SMBs to outsource IT functions
- The MSP sales process and why it is important to nurture prospects over time
- Actionable tactics you can use to put these insights to work – proven by an IT veteran!
‘Attack and Conquer the In-House IT Opportunity!’ is a free webinar on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 1:00PM ET by Autotask Corporation and Kutenda.
To register, or to learn more, visit:
‘Attack and Conquer the In-House IT Opportunity!’
Then why use it to promote your business?
Because email marketing is measurable, affordable, efficient and — most important — remarkably effective.
Despite occasional reports (always anecdotal) announcing its demise, email remains the humble workhorse of the marketing world, generating great results with little fanfare.
Sure, email doesn’t have the same cachet or novelty of social media, but if you follow the money, you’ll discover the real story: marketers heart email. And their love is growing: Spending on this advertising channel continues to rise–$492 million in 2008 to a projected $677 million in 2011.
What’s driving this trend? Three words: Return. On. Investment. The Direct Marketing Association estimates an ROI of $42.08 for every dollar spent, making it the most effective direct marketing channel in existence – online or offline. Let that sink in…
(Second on list is search advertising, which returned a respectable $21.85.)
Why does email work? Because it’s relevant. According to research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, “email remains the most popular online activity,” despite the growth in popularity of instant messaging and social media.
So we can agree, email is pretty cool and quite relevant. Here’s where the story gets more complex…
Email marketing is hard.
It takes an abundance of time, planning, research, attention to detail, followup, technical savvy, knowledge and creativity to reap that $42 ROI. It doesn’t just fall into your lap when you hit send.
And most businesses aren’t doing it right. According to EmailStatCenter.com, 82 percent of email marketers aren’t even tracking their campaign metrics year over year.
We’ve sent tens of millions of emails on behalf of our clients and we’ve poured over reams of analytics data. As a result, we have a pretty good handle on what works and what doesn’t.
We know what a good click-through rate is, which subject lines work, why some messages get snagged in spam filters, when to deploy campaigns, and how to use visual cues to draw clicks.
We know what ISPs want, what businesses need, and what audiences demand.
That’s why our clients rely on us to do their email marketing for them. Because we’ve know how to squeeze the biggest business benefit from every dollar invested in email.
Email Consultants@Kutenda.com to schedule a one-on-one consultation with one of my Internet Marketing experts who will help you assess how Kutenda Engage aligns with your business’ growth objectives.
- Mike
Back- up and Disaster Recovery (BDR) is a one of the strongest resources for an IT Service Provider to generate recurring revenue for their business. The problem is that many Service Providers don’t know who to target, how to price their services or how to close the sale.
Just last week I hosted a webcast that covered Expert Marketing Methods to Multiply your BDR Revenue. In the session, I detailed the 4 biggest mistakes MSPs make in Marketing and how to overcome them, including:
1. Packaging your services for success
2. Using “risk reducers”
3. Being willing to spend money to make money
4. Not giving up too easily or not following up consistently enough
In the Q&A session, I received some great questions that I wanted to share with our blog readers:
When you offer a 30 day trial, do you give the client the first 30 days for free or do you suggest a fixed price discount at the end of the trial?
In most cases, I recommend not to give away your services for free. This sets a bad precedent and shows your clients that you don’t value your own time. That being said, you have to know your audience and set different rules for different clients. I have given away many free months of service to clients who I knew would yield future recurring revenue.
What type of compensation plan do you suggest for your sales team?
I have found the best success with a monthly base and recurring commission plan for my sales team. This ties them to the success of the clients they bring in and gives them incentive to sign up quality clients who won’t churn in a couple of months.
Where do I start if I just opened my business and have no clients?
I suggest you do four things:
1. Make it your 24/7 job to sell and BE DILIGENT!
2. Make cold calls
3. Leverage email marketing. It’s a minimal cost and highly effective.
4. Establish your web presence so that customers searching for managed services can find YOU.
Do these four things on a consistent basis and soon you’ll be able to hire people to help you. Don’t get discouraged!
I hope you gained valuable information from these tips. To hear all of my BDR marketing methods watch the complete webcast here.
- Mike
