Kayla Wainwright says, “Marketers often struggle to know what metrics to use when trying to decide on the positioning of their marketing collateral. This can lead to many problems. At MECLABS Institute, the parent company of MarketingExperiments, we have run experiments and tests for over 20 years to help answer this question. Customers take many actions when moving through the funnel, but what is the ultimate goal the company is trying to achieve with their marketing collateral? By answering this question, companies can best determine what the most important KPI is to measure. To best illustrate... [...]

Liva LaMontagne says, “Self-service and customer co-production of products is everywhere — customers assemble furniture themselves, follow directions on food packages to prepare meals, scan their own groceries at supermarkets and use online banking. Despite its price-lowering and customization value, co-production has a dark side, requiring effort and time from the customer and potentially causing frustration. Today, we’ll look at a study from the furniture industry comparing the effects of two marketing communication strategies to mitigate customer frustration with the co-production... [...]

Andrea Johnson says, “According to the CMO Council, digital ads will lead the way for global media growth in the next two years, accounting for 33% of total advertising revenue and growing from $133 billion to $194.5 billion. This month’s MarketingExperiments Web clinic examined how to make the most of this increasing digital investment by focusing on the “Only-Factor” — the point of your value proposition where your product’s exclusivity and appeal meet. Check it out here. The two experiments below illustrate the power of the “Only-Factor.” In the first experiment, a credit... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, ““Unicorn.” If you read the business press these days, it is a term you simply can’t avoid. The analogy of a mythical creature to describe a very real phenomenon — the startup that has reached a valuation of at least $1 billion. So what makes or breaks a startup? Why do some succeed magnificently while so many simply fizzle out? There are many answers to that question, but one key element that unicorns have in common is an effective value proposition. On the flip side, venture capitalist David Skok wrote that one of the reasons startups fail is, “There is... [...]

Paul Cheney says, “I did a training on selling training for the sales team today. It was what Millennials call “meta.” I was talking about how our training uses scientifically valid experiments to back everything we say in our training rather than best practices, anecdotal case studies or just “expert advice.” The question naturally arose: “What do we mean when we say ‘scientifically valid experiments’?” When I answered the question in the meeting, I immediately thought it would be a good idea for a blog post. So, with that said, here’s the answer: In short, it means that... [...]

Shelby Dorsey says, “As the copy editor at MECLABS (parent company of MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments), I see a lot of content. Between the four blog posts published every week and the multiple case studies produced, I have an ample amount of exposure to the testing brands are doing and what their ads look like. That being said, I have very harsh eyes when it comes to examining ads. My job is to fix mistakes in text, so I often find myself looking for mistakes in text. It turns out, so do your customers. Few things are as fun to share on social media as when a company messes up.... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “Black Friday. Cyber Monday. At the end of the year, holiday marketing related press releases are flying fast and furiously across my desk (by which I mean, inbox). But one branded marketing day had my special attention this year — Giving Tuesday — because of the copywriting contest we’re now running with a nonprofit organization, Consumer Reports. For the uninitiated, Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, a promo/hashtag/branded day/whatever that started in 2012 as a backlash against the commercialization and consumerism of Black Friday and Cyber... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “At MarketingExperiments, we endeavor to teach you to bring the process of scientific discovery to your marketing campaigns to learn what your customers really want and improve results. And, to that end, we share experiments (along with successful case studies — 1,470 and counting — from our sister publication, MarketingSherpa). But we can learn just as much from the stumbles, errors and mistakes we encounter on our journey of customer discovery. Unfortunately, those stories tend to be harder to get. So I want to laud the marketer we are going to discuss today... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “It’s our fourth annual copywriting contest, and this year the MarketingExperiments blog has partnered with the Convince & Convert blog to find the most effective copywriter or marketer to help a nonprofit organization that has spent the last 80 years battling in the public and private sectors for safer products and fair market practices. Take a few minutes to write your most effective email copy expressing one of the Value Focuses that would resonate with donors of our nonprofit partner, Consumer Reports. Leave your most brilliant copy as a comment on this blog... [...]

The latest ‘MarketingExperiments’ blog post is titled “LPO: 2 types of security seals that can help you reduce customer anxiety”. John Tackett says, “Anxiety is one of the key elements in the MarketingExperiments Conversion Heuristic. In our Landing Page Optimization Online Course, anxiety is defined as “a psychological concern stimulated by a given element in the sales or sign-up process.””. LPO: 2 types of security seals that can help you reduce customer anxiety MarketingExperiments Blog  [...]