Here are just a few examples...
Creative testing: A lost art? back to top
When it comes to putting direct mail to work for you, few issues are ignored or misunderstood as much as creative testing.
Yet this tool for discovery is probably more important and can be more fruitful and cost-effective than most focus groups and much of your traditional market research. While lists are constantly tested, the results will vary from list to list…but lists are finite. One incredible jump due to a change in creative platform or offer can bump response on a direct mail effort up to astounding heights in the right environment. All it takes is good planning and educated test concepts.
If you are working with an agency or freelancers, budgets rarely include the extra for testing. Because of that, the subject typically won't come up unless the creatives involved in the project actually request an opportunity to test!
However, most creatives won't ask you for the test, because they have never been involved in the strategy of testing, or they may assume that there is no budget. Yet, having discovered its benefits, many creatives will relish the idea of testing so that their next efforts will be stronger than ever.
Before you test… back to top
Prior to testing a few items need to be covered…
- Share as much database information with your creatives as possible. As questions come up about your target market's preferences and attitudes, these could be platforms for developing tests.
- Share prior tests with your creatives so they don't tread on the same ground, or if they do, they may do so more effectively.
- Develop a wish list. What would you hope to accomplish? Higher response, more qualified leads, bigger sales? Each of these topics may generate a different kind of test. For example, if you want customers to be bolder about trying your product you may want to test a more visible 'money back guarantee' with that as a major point of your 'sell'. If you're a catalog and want to reduce catalog requests to only the most qualified, you may want to charge a fee for your first catalog. But all of these things should be tested, to keep your risk down.
- Determine what kind of budget you can invest in creative testing. I refer to this as an investment, because like all investments, it may be risky but it is necessary to provide you a stronger future.
Once you have prepared these things, you are ready to begin your test strategy meeting. In that, you should prepare a creative brief which outlines your basic budget for creative and printing (your mailing numbers may not be changing from the usual for you…you will just be breaking up the mailing into test segments.
Now you are ready to meet with your creative team!
What's a clean test? back to top
A creative test needs to be kept 'clean' of things like list or other variables. In the mail, if you test within one list being tested, you really must test across multiple lists to confirm accuracy of results. If you test a new size envelope and a new letter, you'll never know whether your increased (or decreased) response is due to the new copy of the letter or the larger envelope. If you change the price of a product in the same test as an envelope, you may never know why it did better or worse. Frustrating and counter-productive!
If you're looking for a big breakthrough, you may want to test an entirely new creative package, almost certainly a more expensive alternative than just testing one element. This tends to be where your big 'win' will come in. Again, when you test an entirely new package you must head-to-head it against your current “control”.
Ad creative should be tested, too, to reduce your risk and to look for stronger marketing and creative solutions. You may find after testing ads that you may end up with a 'control' for one magazine which is different from the 'control' for another. The beauty of space advertising is that you can do that and have the best of all these worlds. Just keep in mind that your brand identity should be consistent with these different ads so you don't jumble your branding message.
Ad tests can be everything from entirely new creative to offer testing. You can even test 'preprints', which you print ahead and send to the magazine for insertion in the bindery. And testing of ads can pay off substantially Ð consider the fact that we've seen ad tests pull response up double, triple and more. So it can really be worth the cost of testing.
In ad creative testing, you need to get A-B split testing in publications large enough to have that option. If this is impossible, try to run your ad A one week, and ad B the next week, same day. Alternate every other week for a few months, compare numbers to the same weeks the previous year to allow for seasonality and weekly variation. (However, the A-B split is the only true clean way to test ads.)
Catalog creative testing is often ignored due to the perception of high cost. Again, you could find that your current direction only pulls half of what a new creative direction can get you. Consider the fact that a few years ago, a well established luxury home goods catalog moved from illustrated covers ('we have ALWAYS had our covers done by this illustrator') to photographed ones Ð and their response on the photography test was phenomenal. They kicked themselves for not testing sooner.
Other things to test in catalogs are models vs none, cover models of different sexes or race, location vs studio, big offer vs subtle offer vs no offer and so on. You can do a pretty good test with just the cover and reply form changing, including premium tests.
In catalog testing, be sure that the catalog test is spread out among your entire file and all geographic areas; a test to just one part of the country isn't very useful unless you only plan to mail there in the future.
Testing can be affordable. back to top
When kicking off a new product in a direct mail environment, sometimes an affordable and useful test is an envelope test -- testing 2 or 3 very different concepts on the outside, then keeping the letter more generally informative so it pays off any of the three envelopes. In the case of a test we did several years ago for Home Health Handbook, a set of continuity health cards, we tested 3 copy/design platforms:
- 'Questions' format -- made famous by publishers like Boardroom , it had 4 questions of a medical nature including a children's health issue and a 'sex' question.
- 'Emotional' format -- using a frightening emergency medical circumstance to make them realize how they need to be better prepared.
- 'Cognitive' format -- driven by product and offer only.
All three envelopes were strong looking and compelling -- which one was the winner?
Although we were together on our 'vote' for the emotional one, the clear winner was the 'questions' format -- which has proven to be a winner to so many other publishers. It had some elements of cognitive, but was more compelling and involving. Yet it covered a few more topics than the emotional approach which dealt with a medical emergency situation. Had we chosen the Emotional one -- everyone's favorite -- they would have gotten a good 2 percent lower response and never known a better way. When they hit their huge mailing list the next time, this control brought them significantly higher income than if we had gone with the one we thought would be the winner.
Of course, in business mailings, 'must do' envelope tests always should include number 10 envelopes, both plain white and printed.
Other affordable and interesting tests can involve stickers both as attention getters, offer-drivers, and response ticklers. In high tech, a natural test is an enclosed trialware cd versus picking up trialware on your website. This test can be more expensive, but again, the investment in the test could either save you a fortune in cd costs…or gain you thousands more customers who are grateful to have the time savings of the cd enclosed.
Testing can be eye-opening! back to top
You will be astonished at the number of elements you can test and learn from. Creative testing includes premiums, creative platform, copy points, just about anything you have a question about which you believe could make a strong impact on your package's response. Also, anything which, when you discover the results, will impact the way you 'talk' to your customer in the future. You can test within liftnotes (including adding one), stickers, special envelope formats and papers, adding lumpy elements to the package to intrigue and punching holes in the envelope to tease.
Here are just a few examples… back to top
Premium tests seem like a marketing test, but creatives are invaluable to work with in both the brainstorming and creative solution stages of this kind of test.
For a major automotive manufacturer, I have been involved in gift-for-test drive offers for about 3 years, and also recently completed a gift-for-purchase offer test. These have been fascinating at times. But the most significant result I have seen is what we have learned about our customers, who are SUV enthusiasts. They have responded with incredible astuteness about the quality of the gifts offered (it does not need to be expensive, but it needs to be good quality for what it is).
I was recently reminded of our premium testing upon reading an article about another automotive company who has just sent out a mailing, offering a choice of gifts for purchase. It reminded me of the significant amount of testing I have done over the last few years, most of which indicates to us that the choice of premiums depresses response. It makes me wonder if these folks considered a test!
Here's another eye-opener: A recent group of direct mail tests we were involved in revealed to us -- to our astonishment -- that there was, in fact, not enough of a market for the product for us to sell it by mail! Had we only dropped one version in the mail, we would have never known…was it the price? The creative? The offer? But with an aggressive series of direct mail tests, we knew that we'd get our 'hit' somewhere. We felt confident at the end that we had exhausted our possibilities and could concentrate on another marketing strategy. Note, this was completely counter to our early research.
Another test from last year proved to us that we could charge $249 for a product instead of $149. In fact, we probably could have gone higher…perhaps that is a test in the future! We found in our test that our consumers had more confidence in the $249 product. The 'creative' side of this test may not be apparent, but it was the creative team who in a testing discussion brought up the fact that the product seemed 'too cheap' at $149. This is another example of the team in action.
A creative director from whom I learned so much about testing, Richard Potter, had some favorite tricks for testing, including the lumpy package and the odd shaped die cut window -- what he referred to his 'raincoat' approach. And years later, I did get a fresh control by developing creative incorporating an oval window on an outgoing envelope for an invitational approach.
Testing can be fun! back to top
Aside from the basic educational value of the test, you can use it to enroll your entire staff to be more 'marketing-driven'.
In my earlier days of direct response, an in-house agency in which I worked made testing a company-wide event, in which every employee had a glance at the range of tests being done for the various clients. Everyone -- even the receptionist -- had an opinion on which premium was the winner, or which creative platform the most compelling. We voted on a page that was attached to each of the display boards on which the packages were mounted.
The one who guessed the most packages which did best in the mail received a prize, such as a bottle of champagne or a gift certificate. Now, although it seems frivilous by many company's standards, the process of seeing the creative work actually pulled the company together as a team, and gave every employee a sense of what the company was all about.
Testing can attract top talent! back to top
If you are concerned about being able to afford top talent to develop your tests, consider the direction that some publishers take. Companies like magalog publishers pay fair but basic fees to topnotch creative teams, then 'dangle the carrot' by offering generous bonuses for tests they win. In order to set this up, there will be preparation to do from your side, such as developing spread sheets to show current response numbers and goals. You can even set up a sliding scale for bonuses based on results.
Now, historically, testing is tough to keep clean and solid. The most experienced creatives are skeptical that the entire mailing will go as planned, and to make this an attractive offer to them, you need to assure your team that this kind of test will be carefully monitored so that the scores are easy to track and prove.
If your team is internal, this is a great time to offer bonus rewards for beating the old control. You'll find that they attack the challenge with extra vigor and enthusiasm if they can share in the final result.
Time is essential. back to top
Allowing enough time for your steps, including the creative brief, and the research and exploration your creative team needs, is essential to giving the team a good shot at your new tests. The investment you are making deserves planning and time to think through the project. Be sure to allow a few extra weeks for discussion, a couple of rounds of concepts, and proper execution.
Remember the word “Team” back to top
Developing your tests requires the entire team's effort. You and your colleagues will have feedback and input which will help your creative team to hit the mark more accurately. Share it generously with them. Your creative team includes both your writer and your art director. They are present to listen to you and share their experience with you. Be sure to include both of them in your discussions of the project, and you'll find you get the most effective work for your investment.
