Pop quiz…
Scenario A: You’re running an email campaign. The set-up requires a landing page, and the visitor to opt-in for your “thing.” Next, you set up a campaign to guide the person gradually from awareness of you, to a small engagement with you, to how you solve their problem and finally to a decision. Executed over at least a week…probably longer.
Scenario B: Intuitively, you think “let’s just skip the first two steps and go straight to the call to action, the decision.” This approach shortens your campaign down to a matter of days, and shows them quickly how you solve their problem.
In the work Chris and I do with our clients, we find most of our folks prefer Scenario B. They want to move more quickly to the decision…which is really the sale, isn’t it?
Perfect example of why marketing gives us all a big, fat headache.
Who really knows which approach works best?
I now know.
A company called Adaptly ran a study on these exact scenarios to determine whether a campaign designed along the more traditional approach—Scenario A—delivers greater effectiveness than one that consists of a call to action.
Adaptly did all the things a good research study does. They ran a control group, and tracked when the person was exposed to each message in the sequence. They ran the study on Facebook because they could create a custom audience for one real company. Then they divided the company’s core customers into two groups, each exposed to one of the Scenarios.
The results leave no doubt.
Scenario A yielded 56% more new subscribers than the call-to-action approach, and 87% more click-throughs.
This is not an insight about technology.
This is insight into we humans.
Building relationships before you go in for the “kill” generates the very best results.
Don’t ask the woman to marry you on the first date. Don’t ask the man to meet your parents after the first cup of coffee. Don’t ask your prospect to buy from you when they’ve just met you.
Take your time. Don’t rush the relationship.
Yes, it takes patience, time and effort on your part. Your prospect doesn’t want it any other way.
Go forth and do great things.