by Bob Walker | Oct 24, 2022 | Analytics, Communications, Marketing and strategy, Marketing research
A recent conversation on A/B testing with a client revealed an interesting perspective about messaging and positioning. The client, extolling their company’s rigorous A/B testing approach, failed to recognize a simple but scary fact: it is easy to compare multiple versions of a sub-optimal message. In the end, you end up with a “less-worse” version of an already weak message. This is not equivalent to building brand value over time — and building a moat around your brand’s essence.
What were they thinking?
The client had overlooked the obvious by ignoring underlying reasons to buy. Instead of testing which alternative was more persuasive based on price, the more important question they should have been asking was: what is the underlying motivation behind purchase? What segments, personas, or buyer types fall into our wheelhouse? Why should our brand be considered in this crowded category? This client, and so many others, seem to miss a simple tenant of marketing: why give away your marketing advantage so early in the game?
This client’s products have significant performance advantages over others in the category, yet they were A/B testing multiple executions built around being a lower-cost, value alternative. If they had taken just a little time to understand buyer behavior, they would have realized that price can be a relatively small factor in the buying decision when the brand looms large.
In this case, A/B testing was fueling a race to the bottom. By choosing the “less worse” option, the client had already decided that they would primarily compete on price, pushing them deeper into a commodity mindset for the customer.
When misused, A/B testing behaves like a cost-reduction test. There are many instructive lessons here: a well-known case is Maxwell House coffee. Over the course of a many years, the company increased its use of lower quality beans in the blend to cut its COGS. It conducted taste tests to make sure that consumers did not detect a difference when compared to the previous blend. But market share began to fall. Why? Because they never tested it against the original formula. What if there were thousands of Maxwell Houses across the globe instead of Starbucks? In the same way, test between meaningful options, rather than confine your evaluation to a narrow set of sub-optimal choices.
Be smart. A/B testing works best when the strategy is well-defined and plays to your advantage. First figure out what that is. Focus on highly persuasive messages that support your brand, rather than identify the best way to discount your business into oblivion. Don’t give away the store when you don’t have to.
by Bob Walker | Aug 17, 2021 | Communications, Customer experience, Strategic research
A quick Google search of the words “relevance” and “marketing” turned up very few useful or informative hits. I found this surprising. Too much digital communication (email, banner ads, YouTube teasers, etc) fails to connect to the consumer in a meaningful, relevant way, which I classify as:
- Emphasis on noise over meaningful communication (“spray and pray”)
- Failure to truly understand the decision maker’s pain points
- Absence of clear product differentiation in communication
- No linkage between pain points and solutions offered by the marketer
- Missing emotional connection with the decision maker
Relevance can be a squishy term because what may be relevant to the marketer is not necessarily relevant to the consumer. Too much digital content is devoid of the connection between the product (or service) and real customer needs. Advertising language is often lifted from the marketer’s vocabulary and not from the customer. That’s because no one has bothered to speak to the customer to hear what is relevant. The approach is “Here are the facts – the consumer will obviously get it!”
In digital, we hear about “performance marketing” and “brand marketing”, and these are certainly useful constructs in the business of optimizing digital spending, but more fundamentally we are missing major opportunities to demonstrate our role as “market makers” between customers and sellers. Marketers assume that all features or characteristics are relevant, when in reality too many are not.
Many advertisements on YouTube, for example, don’t connect because the narrator or situation fails to describe the product or link to an end-benefit (even after our attention exceeds the first 5-10 seconds). The same is true for linear or embedded ads on TV or radio. The branding is often held back until the very end. At that point, the advertising has either served to confuse the viewer or waste their time by failing to connect any relevant branding with the story that that was told in the previous 25 seconds. In many cases the storytelling or virtue signaling is more prominent than the brand itself. The consumer must process images, messages, and a story line into something personally relevant that then, in turn, must somehow be linked to a brand benefit. Automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and health care advertising frequently wander into these dead ends. This approach is a complete waste of ad dollars.
Conversely, some features are immediately relevant because they connect to obvious end-benefits. Amazon’s One-Click checkout feature or FreshDirect’s automatic re-ordering are great examples. They mimic the in-store checkout experience: I hand my credit card to the register clerk and don’t have to think again. Amazon and FreshDirect don’t have to talk about it: One-Click has multiple end-benefits: I don’t have to fumble for a credit card, enter a delivery address, and my window is already known. In short, I don’t have to think at all – and can get back to the more important work I was doing before I placed my order. Amazon and FreshDirect become directly relevant because they save me time – something of great value to us all.
Industry experts, the Advertising Research Foundation, and others all generally agree that content and creative account for as much as 70% of the impact of advertising. Too many of us are focused on the shiny object of ROI and targeting, when in reality what consumers want is something that is relevant and meaningful and that makes their lives better.
Don’t forget this fundamental tenant of advertising: do your research, uncover unmet needs, and make it relevant!
by Bob Walker | Mar 31, 2020 | Communications, Customer experience, Emotion
The stream of COVID-19 email communications continues to spill over the transom with messaging that is marginally helpful in many cases, and often unnecessarily complicated, confusing, and unhelpful.
Below are five simple areas to focus on in your messaging to consumers during this most difficult time of social distancing and self-isolation. Keep them in mind and test your communications and messaging against them. They will hold you in good stead with your end consumer, whether they are a business buyer, industrial buyer, or everyday consumer.
Do your best not to stray from these simple principles, and consumers will remember you for being thoughtful and direct with them during one of the most confusing times of their lives.
Brevity — be brief. In times of crisis, people seek clarity and precision in the messages they receive. Buyers are in a state of some fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. Fortunately, most people have kept their cool: we have not seen widespread panic. However, the stress level is only going to grow as we move through April-May 2020. What people need most is clear and relevant messaging from you. They have neither the time nor interest in reading voluminous messages from companies with whom they may only have a glancing relationship. If you are sharing information about your hours, accessibility, call centers, ordering information, shipping times, or things that may interrupt the consumer’s experience with your company, these are relevant. In all other cases, be pithy; a few key sentences will do.
Empathy — this period of quarantine and self-isolation is extraordinary. Most “non-essential” work has ceased. Convey genuine concern for your customers, because they are being held prisoners in their own homes. People are able to venture out for food and medicine, but they are not permitted to visit loved ones, attend events, or be present for life’s special moments. Fathers can’t be with their wives during childbirth; visiting elderly relatives in nursing homes is prohibited; scheduling or attending a funeral is restricted. Personally, a family member cannot be admitted to the nation’s leading cancer center because it is not is not accepting new patients. These are real life and death disruptions. Your product or service is simply not at the top of your consumer’s priority list.
Selflessness — set aside the need to make a sale. Sales will return (eventually) but right now your customer is in distress. Demonstrate compassion by extending your brand, product, or service in a way that puts the customer first. Sponsorships and branded efforts are fine, but don’t let them get in the way of the greater goal. Perhaps you won’t make a profit, or may even lose money. Think instead of the total cost vs. overall impact: it may not be measurable. If you have extended yourself selflessly to your customer, with no expectation of a reward, that still builds value. Ask yourself what is it that you are doing to help your fellow citizen. Are you part of the larger need to step outside of your business to help others in distress?
Consistency — Be consistent in the message you deliver in your communications to the customer across all assets (web site, email, addressable media, or broadcast). Do not vary the core elements of your messaging from day to day, and get it right the first time. Be on point with not only what you are saying, but also doing, as well as the tonality of your communications. For now, set aside brand, product, or performance messaging; this will eventually return. Traditional messaging is secondary to the more important aspect of shared sacrifice and being supportive of your consumer in a time of stress and uncertainty.
Reassurance — We look to government leaders for guidance and reassurance that things will get better, and that the shared sacrifice will be worth it. Consumers also need leadership from the companies that they do business with. This includes the brands they use and trust. A reassuring message from one brand may not (alone) be able to penetrate the swirl of confusing messages that consumers are receiving. However, brands collectively can break through and make the consuming public less anxious and agitated. We are, in every respect other than bullets, in a wartime footing against an invisible enemy. Stop thinking in the traditional way, and focus on the greater good, and on what matters to all citizens during a time of national (and global) crisis.
These five simple rules will hold you in good stead with your consumer. As David Ogilvy once quipped (and I take liberal license): the consumer is not an idiot — the consumer is your wife, husband, brother, sister, son, daughter, uncle, aunt, neighbor, and friend. Your job as a marketer is to use your vast skills and resources to make your end buyer understand that you are doing whatever you can to make their lives easier during this difficult time.
They won’t forget it.
by Bob Walker | Mar 18, 2020 | Communications, Customer experience, Emotion
Every day I receive a deluge of email from companies with whom I have a glancing relationship, yet seem compelled to assure me about their healthy operational status during our shared Coronavirus pandemic.
They breathlessly promote their products and services and go out of their way to reassure me that their services are available for purchase. Perhaps they are getting it all wrong: I’m not alone in this perception.
In the stampede to reassure me that their businesses remain uninterrupted, what are they really saying? They are telling me that they are mostly concerned about the impact on their business, and the disruption to their revenue and operations. Unintentionally, they have delivered a pandering, grasping, and self-serving message that conveys how little they care about the customers they serve.
On the one hand, it is understandable: Coronavirus has the world and virtually all marketplaces turned completely upside down. This massive disruption to our life and economic well-being is extremely upsetting. On the other, companies have an obligation to communicate to their customers in a way that focuses on them, and not on the operation of the company, its products, or its services. We assume that companies are already doing what they can to remain operational. We do not need to receive dozens upon dozens of emails to point out the obvious. What we do need from marketers and advertisers is a complete shift in strategy – from an “all about me focus” to a “fellow citizen focus”. What might this look like?
I listen to (and highly recommend) the Research Business Daily Report (RBDR) on the marketing research and analytics industry, and most recently listened to media researcher Bill Harvey about his ideas on thoughtful messaging adjustments during this worldwide pandemic. Bill founded Research Measurement Technologies (RMT), a pioneer in media measurement. He points out that advertisers need to pivot to quality of life advertising – and away from the advertising of features and benefits.
More than ever, advertising and messaging need to convey shared ideals and motivations. What are the areas of overlap between a brand and its customers? How can we as marketers build relationships with customers based on motivations that are positive and uplifting?
Over the years Harvey identified 15 motivational drivers, similar (in principle) to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs developed in the 1940s. These motivational drivers exist, more or less, in all of us. They are:
• Experience of life (including sex)
• Self-transcendence (or altruism)
Advertisers would be well-advised to investigate how they can incorporate some of these fundamental human motivators in their messaging and advertising right now. If you are solely focused on features, benefits, usage situations, or problem-solution messaging, chances are that those messages will be ignored because your consumer is primarily focused on health, sustenance, shelter, and survival.
Are you simply marketing your product or service as usual? Are you using your messaging during this pandemic to pat yourself on the back, or check the box with IR or HR? Or are you really, really in the trenches with consumers, psychologically lifting them up, and making them feel like you care about how they are doing? Ask yourself: are you being genuine?
If your answer to the last question was no, then you need to rethink your entire communications strategy for the foreseeable future. In a world of pandemics and unpredictable externalities, no one cares if Product A removes stains better that Product B.
Consumers already assume that your product works. What they really care about is whether you believe what they believe.
So, what is it again that you believe?
