Cullmann Design Blog

In 1967, the graduate is counseled to pursue a future in plastics. Good advice for the time. To the modern business graduate, what is a sure thing?Regardless of what you believe the shelf-life of social media is, there is a fundamental shift in business communication that is occurring. At one point recently, the business world and the interactions between companies, and between companies and their clients was opaque. With the growth of social media, and the mindset of consumers that they can reach large businesses, that perception is changing.

With this change, comes an opportunity for those who understand what to look for in a changing world. The people are not the social media experts and gurus who claim that Facebook and Twitter are the end-all-be-all of new business. The people who have a future are the people who understand that the world is changing and are constantly on the look-out for what will change next and how.

I don’t want to make light of the current state of employment in this country, nor do I believe that the current guard of business is asleep at the wheel. I am proposing that the savvy graduate coming into the business world will need more than a business degree to make a difference. The opportunity for new graduates to make a mark for themselves is leveraging what they have likely been using to communicate with their friends and family, using to promote their band, and using instead of a television to entertain themselves. They will need to bridge those tools to promote businesses and brand, but do so in a way that makes sense for the channel and time.

The same successful graduate who uses these tools will also need to be know why they are using them. Is Facebook a better choice because it has a broader demographic than Google+? Will Google+ provide a platform relevant to marketers? Having a hunch which is the right choice (and being able to articulate why) is what companies need right now and will be willing to pay for.

It sounds insane, but what the modern business needs is more alchemy than science. It’s the individual who can understand how to apply what is available now and read the tea-leaves to for the next big thing to come from Disrupt.

Even the most experienced advertising veteran can be surprised by the behavior of customers and end users. Responding to a changing landscape and refining your approach is not an indication that you are making any wrong decisions, but that you are listening to your customers and honing your message to meet their needs. 

One of the promises of new media is that there is a conversation between brands and their customers. This conversation can take place via channels that are more transparent like Twitter or Facebook or in a forum format like getsatisfaction.com. There is also a much less direct way to have this communication with the use of analytics and testing.

Much less akin to a conversation than a call-and-response technique, analytics provide insight into everything that your users are responding to. I would love to paint a picture of a world that has analytics refining all aspects of your projects for the best possible ROI. This is difficult, costly and can lead to some very unexpected outcomes. I can tell you that analytics, in particular a method called A/B or Comparative testing, can help improve your campaign and yield insight into your digital campaigns.

A/B testing is a method that compares 2 or more approaches to the same design challenge to determine which can generate a better response (or in some cases to test that there is no better response). The results are then monitored and compared. If the differences are significant, additional tests are recommended to prove the better solution. The improved solution then becomes your best practice or a “control” for further tests. If this sounds simple, it is. It does require some effort from both the client and those involved in the creation of messaging, creative assets, technology partners and a party to review the analytics. In return, you have the beginnings of an evolving marketing strategy with quantifiable analytics behind it.

The idea seems instinctual. It has been in use for many years in the form of best practices and specialty groups who know and understand particular audiences. What makes this so powerful in the digital domain is the near real-time results and responses that can be put to use.

This is best demonstrated in the following scenario: You position a call to action on your website for users to buy a new product. The product offers 2 benefits to the purchaser (longevity of the product and increased safety). Below are 2 examples of messaging that can be tested to see which generate the best response.

The first message expresses the obvious benefits of improved efficiency of the product and the value of purchasing a higher quality item. The second message is emotion based and draws from a bit of fear (very popular with political ads and products aimed at parents).

This example uses different creative and messaging types to determine which will result in more users clicking. Since you want to have no bias in the testing, you want a true 50/50 chance in a users seeing this message. This can be managed several ways, the most popular is to use an  analytics software solution like Google Analytics or Adobe’s Omniture to manage the testing. Google Analytics (free, but lacks real-time results) is a great way to do so and will provide you with a very simple interface with results with a granular breakdown of which sample performed better, how long users where engaged, if they made a purchase (and if that purchase was for that same item), how likely they are to return, etc.

Using a simple test like this will generate a good data set for you to use for shaping current and future campaigns. This same method can also be used to test everything from pricing, registration process and position of call-to-action within a visual design.

Don’t get carried away. It’s very easy for marketers new to this style of analytics to get carried away with data. If you are not careful with your testing, it can lead to some bad decisions as well. First, you have to be sure that your testing set is large enough to gather reliable statistics. If you have traffic comparable to Amazon.com, real-time data is more feasible. If your site traffic is closer to Uncle Bill’s Pancake house during the off-season, you may need to be more judicious in making changes.

Even the smallest websites should be looking at A/B testing as a way to refine their websites and shape traffic. Doing so can be done by looking at trends over time. Comparing traffic against the same days of the week or looking at how competitor’s offers may be affecting your website’s traffic and business.

When you begin to look at all of the effort and variables required to begin A/B testing your website or digital campaign, it can seem very daunting. It’s benefit is not for the short-term wins, but the benefit you have over the course of time. You begin to have a very strong understanding of your community and how users are interacting with your digital properties. This is an incredible benefit if you aren’t making use of any social media to enable a true “conversation” with users.

These same analytics will also give website owners and agencies data to make evolutionary decisions with. Few things are as powerful or as useful when discussing changes than real data and case studies from your own brands. Analytics and testing can give you a deep well of this experience to draw from and make bold and informed moves with.

To learn more about using comparison testing to improve your digital campaign, take a look at some of the sites below that provide a more detailed explaination and enhanced perspective. And if you have any questions, leave a comment.
Google Analytics
Adobe Omniture
How to analyze A/B testing using Google Analytics

In competitive spaces like the hotel industry, differentiation is crucial. Defined by many difficult to articulate properties, service, ambiance and implied personal taste being examples. Modern brands have found new ways to leave an impression in customer’s minds: Olfactory marketing. 

What does “scent” mean to a brand? What can be communicated? Several examples come to mind, the coconut scent of suntan lotion, synonymous with beach vacations and the heat of summer sun. Other examples include the branding of hotel chains via a specific aroma that is uniform regardless of location or geography and the most famous–the formulation of fryer oil for McDonalds to induce a pavlovian purchase from the hungry masses.

The approach to branding via aroma can be approached several ways, As a welcoming message to returning patrons with a scent that is unique the first time, but can trigger a memory upon re-encountering the scent. This is a way for marketers to approach still new territory with consumers. The brain is capable of storing and retrieving memories associated with odor more clearly than the other senses. This, combined with the reliance on visual stimulus for online marketing, can make “real-world” encounters powerful opportunities for a service to establish itself in memory.

Scent can also leverage a feeling based on pre-existing proclivity. An example, would be the smell of cleanliness. Lemon and citrus smells lend themselves well to household instances. Heavier reliance on cleanliness (hospitals and healthcare facilities) require something stronger to reach sterile requirements and also set expectation for a stronger smell to establish the sense of cleanness in visitors mind.

for many brands, the task may seem daunting: where to begin? How much is too much? How will I measure success? For large brands, a finding a specialist in the field is a great chance to be a leader and do so with a group that has experience. Brands can also work on a smaller scale with market research and smaller, pilot programs. Such testing can yield not only information on how to “sniff” out success, but also a way to learn about your audience’s disposition for your brand. Scent is a way to articulate ideas without the typical predispositions most market research has.

In many ways, technology is tearing us away from analog encounters and refining our perception on what is a narrow channel of measure. So much of digital branding is now held to the visual and audio communication that travels well digitally. This encounters that we have as consumers outside of that narrow band can be very powerful. As brands enter into s maturing online market and social branding becomes a minimum point of entry, making strong mark’s on people’s memories is crucial. Accessing those memories and provoking a feeling or mood will help build an affinity and a toggle for strong feelings at a later date or even without direct exposure to the trigger.

Using a series of colors and tones, we may soon be seeing some marketing tools that cause sme-mories.