My friend Rex needed to trim his hedges. He decided he was tired of “boring shapes” so he decided to do something a bit different.
Here are his hedges.
Think outside the ordinary shrub… see what happens.
Author Archives: Jodi Kaplan
What Does A/B Split Testing Have to do with Shoes?
Image via Wikipedia
Some years ago, I was taking the garbage down the steps of death, and slipped. I fell down about half a flight.
Once I got outside and tossed the trash, I stopped for a second to check and see if I was bleeding or bashed up. As I was turning my legs this way and that a woman stopped, looked at me, and said, ‘Yes, those shoes are really nice.”
Huh?
I was checking for wounds, not admiring my footwear (there weren’t any, but I was pretty black and blue for a while).
Assumptions can be dangerous
You know what people say about assuming. Assuming that you know the best headline, or the right wording on your offer, can be a mistake. The best way to tell is to test it. Run an A/B split and find out which really works better. The idea is to just change one thing (and one thing only). That way, you know exactly what made the difference (if there is one). Change the headline, and the button text, and the color of the subheads all at once and you’ll never know what helped (or hurt) your results.
Think you already know the answer, without testing? Check out Which Test Won and see how good you are.
Add or subtract?
If you don’t test, you won’t know if that award banner is distracting, or adding credibility to your offer. The right graphic could increase your click through rate. The wrong one might send people running to the delete button. Testing the wording can make a big difference too.
And, always, walk carefully when going down the stairs with a big bag of trash.
Have you tried split testing? What results did you get? Share in the comments, or ask questions.
Does Audience Size Matter?
In America, we tend to like stuff that’s big. Big cars (until gas prices rise), big houses, big audiences, big lists, everything big. The bigger it is, the more we like it.
Image via Wikipedia
Take the photo on the right, for example. It’s an image of the world’s largest piano.
Yes, it’s big. It’s also probably unplayable, unless you have a whole team of pianists who have carefully practiced playing in perfect unison.
It may be wonderful to look at, but in practical terms, it’s pretty useless.
Is a bigger list always better?
I belong to two different forums on similar subjects. One has about 4,000 active members (out of over 40,000 that signed up). The other has 15 people.
The larger forum is paid (not a large sum, but still they collect a fee every month).
With all those people in the first forum, you’d think it would be humming with posts and activity. It was, at first, but now it’s slowed to a trickle. The founder (who is very well known online) hasn’t been around in months and months. The person he hired to run it disappeared for weeks without warning or explanation.
Or is useful better?
The second forum is very active, and it’s free. The founder is not nearly as well known (likes to keep a low profile). But, he posts or comments nearly every day. Members ask questions (and get good answers). They support and help each other.
Forum #1: Useless
Forum #2: Priceless
The same principle applies to marketing (whether it’s an email list, a snail mail list, or pay per click). What counts is not large numbers of people, but whether you’re reaching the right people. A big list of 100,000 names, or a forum with 40,000 signups, won’t help if the addresses are outdated, the members don’t participate, or your service/product is irrelevant.
Tuesday Travels: The Link Between Cycling and Freelancing
Image via Wikipedia
Pedal harder dammit – So true, really, so true.
Book marketing and promotion – Don’t expect your publisher to market your book, that’s your job. Pedal harder!
Your call is important to us (except when it isn’t. These folks need to pedal much, much harder.
Quotes you never hear from company founders. (Thanks to Jonathan Fields for pointing out this post)
(By the way, I have shamelessly stolen borrowed the pedal harder motif from Ian Lurie, who got it from his cycling coach. The whole story is at the first link).
Marketing and Laundry Labels
Have you ever taken a good look at clothing care labels? A friend posted a funny version which was just a meaningless string of symbols, then the words, “or just ask your mom, she knows.”
This got me thinking.
Those labels are broken
Apparently, all those symbols represent a full page of different clothing instructions – water temp, dryer settings, whether to use bleach (or not) and on and on. The trouble is, that the symbols are not intuitive. They make no sense unless you have a long ‘cheat sheet’ to crack the secret clothing care code.
I wonder how many garments have been ruined because buyers couldn’t figure out how to care for them. Those labels are there because the FTC requires them. Apparently, there was no requirement that they be understandable (though the FTC is seeking new comments).
Instead of those silly symbols nobody can understand, why not either a) get better symbols (get input from Apple’s designers) or b) write it out in words.
Even worse, I just bought something which has a label with pale gray symbols on a black background. It’s nearly impossible to see the symbols, let alone figure out what they are.
The same thing can happen with marketing or client communication efforts. You’re busy focusing on code and using terms like UX and UI. You’re talking about decision trees and canonical URLs and how critical it is to SEO.
Your client’s head is spinning around. They know you’re saying something important, but they’re not quite sure what it is. They also aren’t sure why it matters or how it affects their business.
Have you had this experience? Tried to talk to someone who was speaking in symbols instead of plain English? Or have you done it yourself?