How to Make Message Testing Worthwhile

A large part of the success of a product or service is the marketing practices that go into supporting it. Thus, it’s critical that companies not only take care when crafting their marketing messages but that they test those messages prior to putting them to use. Like a larger scale market research project, message testing offers insurance against failure, helping businesses determine the type of messages that will engage the greatest number of people before they actually spend a lot of time, money, or effort distributing them. Here are our suggestions for making your message testing a worthwhile endeavor:

Understand Your Brand Message

A good marketing message reflects a company’s values and carries a specific “tone of voice” that makes its overall branding easily identifiable among consumers. To ensure that your message testing will garner meaningful results, you need to have a firm grasp of your company’s brand. Only then will you be able to measure how well (or not) your message represents the image you’re wanting to convey.

Mix Up Your Methodologies

A majority of your message testing will likely be qualitative in nature. After all, you want to know why someone likes or dislikes your messaging and, thus, will need to have the tools at hand to probe consumer thoughts and motivations. However, you shouldn’t overlook quantitative measures that can give you a quick recap of what consumers are engaging with at any given moment. A mix of message testing methods allows you to identify the subject lines, webpages, images, etc. that render the most conversions, as well as explore the consumer motivations and lifestyles that make those actions so.

Focus on a Few Key Points

At Research America, we use a proprietary message testing system that focuses on the four components we believe to be critical for effective advertising: communication, likeability, impact, and persuasion. By focusing on these four key areas, we are able to evaluate complete ads (or even just portions of ads) so that our clients get meaningful and actionable feedback surveying fewer respondents in less time.

Test Early and Often

Rather than test a fully-formed message and risk a poor consumer reception that sends you back to the drawing board, aim for periodic message testing cycles that allow you to tweak your messaging even as you’re devising it. Message testing in this way — early and often within the creative process itself — saves you from possibly having to totally reinvent the wheel later on.

Want to Learn More?

Message testing is the only way that companies can maximize the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. It saves time and energy and, in the long term, it saves money, allowing you to craft communications that resonate with consumers and accurately reflect your brand. The result: improved ROI. Please contact our team of market researchers at Research America to learn how our expertise ensures your message testing is worthwhile, truly capable of informing your business decisions and boosting your bottom line.