Test Messaging
I had an interesting little test messaging experience the last couple of days, and it got me thinking about the best ways to go about doing this.
First, I will disclose up front that the two e-mail messages I received were from a political candidate whom I can say with about 100% surety I will never, ever, ever, in a million election days, cast a vote for. (This makes me wonder where they got my e-mail address to begin with. Oh, I know, they may be making the assumption that only members of a certain party read The Wall Street Journal or The Economist. Wrong you are!)
The first e-mail message had a subject line that included the words “‘Obama is irrelevant’ on Iranian crisis.” Well, one can argue whether the incumbent president is more or less relevant than, say, a former senator, but the point is that the header - which contained, I believe, a direct quote from the former senator, was negative. But negative in a way that likely has some appeal to the sender’s core constituency. Less appeal, however, to those not in “the core” who, presumably, this politico would want to reach out to.
The second e-mail message had a snappier, and somewhat more cryptic, subject line, that included the phrase “The Rockets Red Glare.”
It probably makes some sense to relate the full subject lines here, because I do think that they matter:
The first was “Fred’s Monday Clip - ‘Obama is irrelevant’ on Iranian crisis.”
The second (received a day later) was “Fred on Iran - The Rockets Red Glare.”
(By the way, the e-mail messages were one and the same both times. This somewhat disappointed me - I felt a bit shortchanged - but I recognize that, if all they wanted to test was the open-up-and-click-through-rate based on the subject header, they had to keep all else constant.)
While I am curious, I haven’t had the time to click through and listen to Fred’s Monday Clip. And I am really wondering which header pulled better.
If they were going after red-meat Fred supporters, they probably got good traction on the first one. (”Hey, that Obama fellow is irrelevant, now that you mention it.”)
If they were trying to appeal to more independent voters, then I’m guessing the Rockets Red Glare e-mail pulled more folks in. (”Well, I didn’t think much of that kind of nasty e-mail yesterday, but this sounds like Fred-the-once-and-future-statesman may have something to say on Iran.”)
On the other hand, the first message, in fact, provided more content - something I usually appreciate. In this case, however, it pretty much gave away the content in a way that would be not-so-appealing to some audience. The message I took away: Fred’s Monday Clip promises to be an aggressive, exaggerated slam, and not a thoughtful, reasoned position piece.
The lessons for us B2B marketers here are 1) it’s good to test; but 2) maybe you’ll be a bit better off overall if you focus a bit more on your personas before you send out generalized blasts. The first e-mail was pretty much a turnoff to begin with. While the second one didn’t exactly make me fall in love with Fred, it also didn’t suggest to me that this was just going to be an opportunistic attack undermining the President at a critical time.
Fred’s PAC should absolutely have been able to mine their data well enough to know that I’m not a red-meat Fred supporter. Sure, there are those tell-tale business subscriptions…But I’m guessing that they probably had my zip code, as well, which I can guarantee should have given them a pretty good idea that I don’t live in Fred Territory. Business subscription + zip code should have, at best, marked me as a potential Mitt supporter. (And I’ll say one thing about Mitt’s PAC - they’re savvy enough not to go sending me any e-mail blasts, Wall Street Journal or no Wall Street Journal subscription!)
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Talk about subject lines! I am embarrassed to admit that I got almost all the way through your post, thinking to myself, “Yes…but what does this have to do with text messaging?”
I think the most interesting part of your post is that Fred’s people were oblivious to the fact that, in testing both lines, they were by definition exposing you to the less effective option too. (And in fact, one you actively disliked.) How valuable is it to turn OFF a prospect in the process of finding out what WON’T?
I recently commented on an on-line ad testing approach that I think makes some of the same mistakes. People seem to forget that when you test things in this fashion, you are playing with live ammunition. It muddies up your brand at best, and damages it at worst
Actually, if they were after donations, I’m surprised they bothered with the second, as the first is the strident type of message that would likely open conservative purse strings. You? Hey, they weren’t going to get YOU anyway! Boy, you just can’t trust that WSJ audience any more, can you?
Mike - Funniest thing - only after I published this post did it dawn on me that the subject was sort of punning/sort of misleading. Oh, well.
You make a good point on the Fred PAC leading with the more negative subject header when they were sending the trial message to an audience that they did not know for a fact was “theirs”, i.e., hadn’t donated, aren’t known to be registered R’s, etc.
It has got me thinking about how to do an effective test - I’ll give them that much. (And not a penny more!)