Was It The Envelope?
“The letter seems OK, let’s test another carrier!”
You heard that — maybe said it — before.
It occurred to me as I was listening to this Ethan Boldt (Direct Marketing IQ) video reviewing a new carrier format he thinks will light up response rates. One example is from Obama for America 2012; the other is from Gettysburg Museum.
Now, Roger grew up in Gettysburg and belongs in the Museum, but I digress.
Ethan draws our attention to the carrier. Cool. But what about the letter … the reply card … the signer … the dollar string … an insert … a premium … or any other component that one might test?
Roger has been arguing, with our colleague Kevin Schulman at DonorVoice, that package testing as presently carried out is pretty much a crap shoot. Too many variables are tested simultaneously, and on no basis other than somebody’s ‘conventional wisdom’ or a few hunches, with the result that no one can really tell which elements of the package might really have made a positive difference … and which didn’t.
“Oops … we didn’t beat the control.”
Meanwhile, lots of time and money wasted. And we’re still not sure why.
So Roger and Kevin have developed a methodology for pre-testing potential package components and variations in an affordable but empirically reliable way … before anything goes in the mail.
That’s the subject of their free webinar on this Thursday the 9th at 11:30 eastern. You can still get a seat here.
So before you rush off to test an envelope that uses “four-color, full-bleeds to the edge and in-line printing to the max” … you might want to consider what Roger and Kevin will demonstrate on Thursday.
Tom
Behavioral Science Q & A
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