MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

In today’s Web clinic at 4:00 p.m. EDT – “How You Can Use Email to Discover the Essence of Your Value Proposition (in 5 Simple Steps)” – Austin McCraw, Senior Editorial Analyst, MECLABS, will use our research to help you discover an effective value proposition, and answer questions like:

• What do your customers find most appealing about your offer?
• … Is it the price?
• … Is it a specific feature?
• … Is it the broader brand association?

But first, we wanted to learn some value proposition insights from the MarketingExperiments community …

Value props consist of needs, wants and desires

The best value propositions consist of:

• The benefits my customer most NEEDS from the product/service (ex: the ability to make 500 copies per minute if we are talking about a printer machine)
• + the most parallel benefit my customer WANTS (ex: saving $400 on ink cartridges/per year)
• + the most DESIRE my customer has with products like mine (ex: colorful/professional reports)

– Ahmed Seddiq, Senior Operation Officer, Corporate Visa Services, Dnata, The Emirates Group

Value proposition testing

Really, the only way to answer this question is to test various configurations of value communication using multivariate testing and scientifically determine what resonates in terms of conversion.

– Jonathan Greene, Business Intelligence Analyst, MECLABS (parent company of MarketingExperiments)

Read more…

According to the MarketingSherpa Executive Guide to Marketing Personnel, people issues dominate marketing department challenges.

Q: What challenges undermine your marketing department’s potential?

Today on the MarketingExperiments blog, let’s focus on the “There is a scarcity of skilled individuals” challenge.

Other departments within a company have increased their productivity and efficiency by leveraging a repeatable methodology and management methods.

For example, manufacturing has Six Sigma. IT has agile software development.

However, marketing tends to focus on individual skilled performers. If your agency or department has a rock star or two, your group will likely perform well. Without them, or when they leave, it can be much tougher to succeed.

A patented marketing methodology

One way to improve the success of your marketing department beyond star performers is to use a repeatable methodology.

Last year, Digital Trust, Inc. (parent company of MECLABS) received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent was originally filed in January 2007. I’ll tell you a little bit more about how you can use this methodology in just a moment, but first our lawyer will explain the patent in more detail …

“On April 10, 2012, Digital Trust, Inc. received a United States Patent (Pat. No. 8,155,995) for an invention developed by co-inventors Flint McGlaughlin and Jalali Hartman,” said Francine Palmeri, Corporate Counsel, MECLABS.

“This patent protects, among other inventions, an innovative method of assessing the effectiveness of a network-based marketing campaign. Specifically, this patented process includes establishing a home website that is linked to several other different parallel websites for presenting an offer for a product.  This method then tracks statistics among the several parallel websites for received product orders and determines which website has the highest probability of order placement,” Francine continued.

Understanding the elements that influence conversion

Now that we’ve discussed the exact legal definition, let’s dive in to see how this patented process can help you. What Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, created combines the use of analogy and heuristics – a heuristic is an experienced-based technique that helps you identify the elements necessary to solve a usually large problem in a short amount of time.

“The patent is a Test Protocol system that attempts to bring discipline to the behavioral testing process. The Test Protocol system integrates a Design of Experiments with data tracking and validation calculations in the experiment,” Flint said.

One of the key heuristics in the patent is the Conversion Sequence.

The Conversion Sequence helps you, or anyone on your team from the intern to the CEO, look at any marketing offer and understand what factors you can change to improve the likelihood of conversion of that offer.

The numbers indicate the impact of each element on conversion, and the plus and minus signs indicate whether those elements have a positive or negative impact on the probability of conversion.

Here is a high-level look at each element, and you can learn more about this heuristic in the Landing Page Optimization online course.

Motivation of user

Motivation is the magnitude and nature of the customer’s demand for the product.

For example, I suffer from alopecia. Which is a fancy way to say … I’m bald. So, I have high motivation to buy Rogaine. If I was overweight, I would be motivated to buy a weight loss aid. If I had acne, I would be highly motivated to buy an acne treatment.

Read more…

Recently, I went through a value proposition workshop for our upcoming Optimization Summit 2013 in Boston led by Adam Lapp, Associate Director of Optimization and Strategy, MECLABS.

The workshop produced a very simple, yet powerful spreadsheet I’m going to share with you today on the MarketingExperiments blog.

Simple, because it is essentially just a list of different elements or points of value of your products with a rating to determine how valuable they are.

Powerful, because … be honest. With all of the email sends, meetings and campaigns you run, how often do you really step back and try to categorize and rank the value of your products through your customers’ eyes?

So, download the MarketingExperiments Value Proposition Spreadsheet. Here are a few simple tips to get you started …

Get the key people in the same room

And brainstorm. But, this is a structured brainstorm. Start by simply listing all of the different points of value your product might have. Let’s take a car as an example:

• Best-in-class fuel efficiency
• High, but not top, safety rating
• Snazzy new design
• Unique sound system

Then, rate each of these elements of value on a scale of 1 to 5 for the following factors:

• Appeal – How much is this offer desired?
• Exclusivity – Is this offer available elsewhere?
• Credibility – How believable are your claims?

Based on this ranking, you will find elements likely to be more valuable to your audience, and elements somewhat less valuable to your audience.

Plus, using the spreadsheet, you now have a consistent way to communicate the levels of significance for different elements of value to everyone in your organization who is involved with that product.

  Read more…

“So, why should I purchase from you rather than any of your competitors?” your ideal customer hypothetically asks you …

“Well, because …” you begin, “[insert your value proposition here].”

Until you can give your customers a convincing answer to that question, your company is simply surviving on pockets of ignorance. So, marketer, what’s the best way to answer that question?

The truth is, you can come up with preliminary answers using your intuition, but you’ll never know the best answer until you test …

And one of the most effective test-beds for getting the absolute best answer to the question is an email campaign.

At MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013, presenter Austin McCraw, Senior Editorial Analyst, MECLABS, shared how an email can become much more than a one-off marketing message.

In his session titled, “How You Can Use Email to Discover the Essence of Your Value Proposition,” Austin explained how marketers can use email campaigns to understand the core motivations of their customers.

Austin provided a several key reasons for why email campaigns make a great proving ground for testing value proposition, including:

• Ease of change
• Large sample sizes
• Highly competitive environment

And my favorite …  it’s something you have to do already.

“Testing value propositions in your email sends is one of the easiest ways to create a culture of testing within your organization,” Austin said.

So today’s MarketingExperiments blog post will share Austin’s five steps for using your email marketing campaigns to discover your value proposition. Our goal is to provide a systematic approach you can use to aid your value proposition development and testing efforts.

Step #1: Identify potential claims of value

Identifying potential claims of value is really all about brainstorming. The example Austin gave for this was to imagine you are selling mortgages. What would be potential claims of value you could make?

Austin came up with some potential claims of value for selling mortgages:

• Reliability
• Lowest rates
• Easy process
• Brand name
• Payment plan options
• Reduced anxiety
• Service quality
• Community involvement

Step #2: Estimate the force of each claim

You can estimate the force of your claims by using elements of appeal and exclusivity to rank the potential claims you brainstormed for your product.

Austin explained how the elements are perceived by potential prospects.

Appeal – “I want this”

Exclusivity – “I can’t get this anywhere else”

Some of your offers will have a greater appeal, but they may not be very exclusive. Other offers might be exclusive, but offer little appeal to your customers.

“You want to test claims that have high levels of both appeal and exclusivity,” Austin explained.

  Read more…

Some industries require an abundance of information from leads before they can deliver their product or service. It can be extremely difficult to show value without handing out exact price quotes.

However, leaving breadcrumbs of value along the lead generation path can earn conversions later when the price is finally revealed.

A good example of this was discussed in MECLABS’ twice-weekly PRS, or Peer Review Session. A lead generation form for a mortgage lender was brought up among the conversion team – an industry where leads are looking for any excuse to bounce at handing over large amounts of information. It is especially confusing, as one team member voiced, because of new regulations and government safeguards on the industry.

In this and many other industries like it, value needs to be shown along the lead generation path so  people will continue to be motivated, even without knowing the exact cost.

Tip #1. Establish an end goal

Discuss everything from what you want your business to achieve at the end of the day, to what you want this one lead generation form to accomplish. They should work together to serve those goals.

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Genghis Kahn, Nickelback, head lice, root canals, colonoscopies, Donald Trump, NFL replacements refs, and France.

These are all things more popular than the United States Congress, according to a recent Gallup poll (as reported in Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!).

Why is Congress so unpopular? Well, depending on whom you ask, the answer might range from Super PAC money to corporate lobbyists to gerrymandered, uncompetitive districts.

However, let me make the case for a topic much more pertinent to marketers … the value exchange.

(Note: It’s my sincere hope not to make this political but rather focused on what marketers can learn from our national legislature’s unpopularity. Let’s see how I do …)

The value exchange

As Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, teaches in our Value Proposition Development online course, for every offer you make to prospective customers, they weigh the value versus the cost when they decide if they will act on your offer.

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