Marketers three core testing categories

“Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.”
― Marshall McLuhan
So many times in the haste of developing our marketing strategy and materials, we use the ol’ seasoned judgment of ‘I think’:
“I think this is the best creative” – it follows brand standards.
“I think this is the best day of the week to mail or post” – the latest industry best practices say this is the best day.
“I think this call to action will be the most responsive” – our rates have been pretty good so far.
Despite knowing that we really shouldn’t make assumptions when it comes to truly knowing our customers, sometimes assumptions still make their way into our marketing plans. After all, we’ve already spent the time building out our customers’ personas and have segmented our data but do we really know how our audiences will respond?

So how do we get from, ‘I think’ to ‘I know’? A great place to start, no matter what level of marketer you are, is to run a relatively easy A/B test. Why is this necessary? Well, our customers’ preferences are changing all the time. Testing allows us to stay on top of these changes and adapt our marketing strategies to ensure our efforts are relevant. Variations in campaign elements can increase engagement and conversion.

Here are the three core testing categories to consider that will have a significant impact on response:

1.     Creative: style of graphics, layout, copy length
2.     Content: subject line, call to action, promotional or editorial copy
3.     Timing and frequency: send time, send day, send or share frequency

Okay, but are marketers really still running A/B tests?