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Welcome back!

We hope everyone had an awesome weekend! With the new month, we’re introducing a new strategy theme to help you BOO-st your marketing campaigns. Creative testing may seem mystical or abstract, but it’s really about taking the guesswork out of your strategy by making data-driven decisions. This week, we’ll be zooming in on message testing— a method to determine which kind of written content resonates most effectively.

Let’s dive in! 🏃‍♂️🚀

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Tools + Productivity

Strategy

Different dog, same tricks

Just like the name implies, message testing is the process of trying out different versions of marketing messages and using response data to determine which ones resonate the most with your target audience.

This can mean creating multiple variations of copy elements like headlines, body texts, call-to-actions, etc— and then systematically testing these variations to identify the most impactful messaging.

Message testing is a marketing tactic not just for businesses, but any organization or individual trying to influence public opinion, shape perceptions, and maximize the impact of their outreach efforts.

Even politicians use it— and looking at how political campaigns effectively use message testing can give you ideas for building your brand, regardless of your opinion on their policies.

In 2012, for example, Obama’s campaign team used message testing in email campaigns to determine which tone brought in the most donations.

They found that casual worked best for subject lines, with a simple “Hey” outperforming more formal headers.

In the email itself, the team tested whether personalization (using the recipient’s name, for example) was any good, and if mentioning donation history boosted conversions. Long emails, short emails, emotional appeals, urgent calls to action— they tested it all. They found that using less information actually led to more donations.

Even the sender was mixed up— sometimes the emails came from Barack, other times they came from Michelle or Joe.

On top of that, they tested optimal send times to get recipients’ attention at the right moment.

P.S: Here’s an example of an email that ended up being an epic fail

As a marketer, you can apply the same idea of iterative testing to adjust campaigns for your audience and make the most of ad spend.

MT toolbox

There are a host of ways you can implement message testing— here are just a few:

1. A/B testing: create two versions of a message varying a single element, then compare their performance.

   For example, you could test two email subject lines

   A: "Limited Time Offer: 50% Off All Products"
   B: "Exclusive Deal for Valued Customers: Half Price Sale”

   Then compare open rates between the two to see which one is more effective.

2. Multivariate testing: test multiple variables simultaneously to find the best combinations of message elements.

   For example, you could test different combinations of headline, body, copy, and CTA in a Facebook ad.

3. Concept testing: evaluate overall messaging concepts or themes before developing full campaigns.

   This might mean testing different brand positioning statements with focus groups before launching a new product.

   Say a brand is preparing to launch an eco-friendly water bottle and tests three positioning statements to present to focus groups:

   A (eco-friendly focus): "Reduce plastic waste with our 100% recycled, reusable water bottle. It's time to hydrate and protect the planet."

   B (health and wellness focus): "Stay hydrated and live healthier with a bottle designed for your active, balanced lifestyle. Your wellness, our priority."

   C (convenience focus): "Lightweight, leak-proof, and designed for your on-the-go life. The perfect bottle for wherever your day takes you."

   

   Image

   Asking focus groups which message would resonate most and more importantly, lead them to make a purchase, would guide the brand’s decision.

Checklist

To successfully implement message testing, you have to

1. Define your objectives: are you trying to determine which value proposition resonates most?

2. What variables do you want to test based on these objectives? Headlines? CTA? Value propositions?

3. Develop variations of your message that align with your overall brand voice.

4. Choose the testing method (A/B, multivariate, etc) that serves your goals.

5. Run the test with a fair distribution of traffic to each variation (keep the sample sizes equal-ish when testing)

6. Analyze results— see which messages performed best based on the appropriate metrics (open rates, click-through rates, etc)

7. Refine your messaging strategy based on these results.

8. Iterate: continuously test on a regular basis to refine your messages based on changing market conditions.

   

   Image

Don’t forget to factor in the context of where you’re testing a message— if you’re testing tone, for example, a professional tone might work better on LinkedIn because of the nature of the platform compared to a casual tone on Instagram. If you’re only looking at the effects in one platform, you might mistakenly adjust your messaging for all campaigns.

Looking Ahead

Message testing is all about continuously optimizing your marketing efforts to minimize wasted ad spend and max out each campaign’s ROI. However, it’s important to keep in mind the need for large sample sizes for accurate tests, and the fact that results might be context-specific and not generalizable.

If you’re interested in automating your marketing processes to grow faster, click here to learn more about how Loopgenius can help you.

Stay tuned for next week, where we’ll continue this month’s new theme!

Attribution models

Week 1: Message testing (this week!)
Week 2: Creative imagery testing
Week 3: Audience Targeting & Segmentation
Week 4: Landing Page Optimization

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