Test Shows Promotional Content Beats Informational: 89% More CTRs …

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Test Shows Promotional Content Beats Informational: 89% More CTRs … MarketingSherpa: Test Shows Promotional Content Beats Informational: 89% More CTRs; 5 Times More Revenue

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Aug 20, 2008

Case Study #CS1055:

Test Shows Promotional Content Beats Informational: 89% More CTRs; 5 Times More Revenue

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SUMMARY: B-to-B emailers routinely focus on relevant informational content as a way to gain trust with their audiences and keep the brand top of mind. But the harder-sell ‘B-to-C style’ during email messages shouldn’t be dismissed.

A small, cross-sector merchandiser tested emails heavy in information against messages weighty in promotion and saw 89% more clickthroughs and five times more revenue arrival from the latter. Here are the 4 steps they took.

CHALLENGE

Serhat Pala, President, TestCountry, and his marketing team were searching for a way to lift replication rates to emails that had leveled off. But typical of small departments, they had a shoestring budget and a small four-person team to work their magic.

Indeed, Pala had to be resourceful and creative to better mark their 50/50 mix of B-to-B and B-to-C prospects for their drug and health testing kits. “From what we knew about our customers, we thought that they didn’t crave to get overly promotional emails. So, we sent them content that was remarkably informative and related to a featured product in the message.”

Pala’s strategy involved sending two types of emails regularly:

1. Messages stressing educational content to aid the promotion of a featured item.

2. Messages pushing a reduction with strong sales follow as a pattern for three or four products.

While refining that tactics, Pala wondered if there would be a unspotted winner if they pitted one kind of message against another on the same day.

CAMPAIGN

Pala decided that the only foolproof way to remark out which type of message was preferred by his prospects was to test them against both other. Here are the 4 steps he and his team took:

-} Step #1. Tailor product offers for optimal findings

Pitting two different messages facing one another was tricky. If Pala and his team didn’t position the criterion fairly, the results could prove meaningless.

First and foremost, they didn’t want the item offered to their customers to throw off their findings. They chose top sellers from past marketing efforts:

o Drug testing kits for promotion-heavy offer

o Thyroid disease testing violin for content-heavy offer

The pathway records of these products indicated that reaped ground was each equally good seller. The deaden with narcotics testers performed well in after promotion-heavy emails; the thyroid sickness kit did equally not amiss in information-heavy offers. Plus, in that place are no good or bad seasons for the products.

-} Step #2. Keep email elements consistent

They didn’t tweak their email layout or copywriting in any way. Instead, they induce together a campaign for each message that involved proven elements from past information-heavy and promotion-driven efforts.

They employed:

- normal mark headers

- established images and copy

- discounts for each sample

For the discount, the information-heavy email involved a $5-off coupon; the promotion-heavy one used a 5%-off offer. Pala says that each incentive was proven to get equally welfare sales results for the two respective messaging styles in past campaigns.

-} Step #3. Write subject lines that reflector the strategy

The at one’s beck lines adhered to the team’s regular strategies. Pala says that he wanted the subject lines to have existence representative of the sort of was inside of the email.

The educational email’s subject line focused on information: “Prostate Cancer: Are you at danger? Find out today.” The promotional email pushed the discount: “Save 5% on your next TestCountry order.”

-} Step #4. Send to equal number at non-seasonal time

In the final measure to procure to be meaningful results, the two versions were sent to an equal number of subscribers — 20,000.

“This was a good approach in terms of seeing which of the two worked best. We wanted to test it on fairly wide segments.”

Each version went out to a segment that would most appreciate the offer. The thyroid test was sent to women over 40 years old. The drug-testing email went to previous purchasers and list members who had inquired about them.

Both versions were sent at TestCountry’s regular mailing hour of travail — midweek, midmorning — as well as during a time of the year (summer) that wouldn’t authority either effect line.

RESULTS

Pala and his team learned that their customers preferred promotion-heavy email by a wide margin. It produced “five times greater degree revenue per email” than the information-heavy translation.

It also got an open rate that was 200.6% higher than the educational email. For clickthroughs, the promotion-heavy email won by dint of. 89.8%.

Some B-to-C-only marketers may be knowingly nodding their heads. But Pala says that he didn’t await such a differential between the pair messages because of their business-consumer mix. “We were surprised.”

The conversion-rate numbers were much closer, though, in the manner that the promotion-heavy version was 6.9% higher. Because such a large number of folks didn’t procreate far enough down the email sales path to convert in the information-heavy group, nevertheless, the major takeaway was a no-brainer, Pala explains.

“We now have knowledge of that people don’t want to understand about the products as much in the manner that we thought. If you don’t have a truly condensed and important message to communicate, then they don’face to face really care.”

The results have made his team alter their email strategy. Pala says they “will not completely abandon” educational content about items, such as the thyroid tester. But they plan to push the products and discounts much more in their new promotion-heavy strategetics.

Useful links related to this count

TestCountry’s Creative Samples: Content vs. Promotion Test

http://www.testcountry.com/

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