Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Surveys, Polls, Forms, and Progressive Profiling: How to Write Questions That Deliver Valuable Insights

Surveys, Polls, Forms, and Progressive Profiling: How to Write Questions That Deliver Valuable Insights

As third-party cookies come to an end, brands are focusing on collecting more zero-party data directly from their customers and prospects so they can better understand their needs and wants.

Although larger surveys will play a role in that process, most brands will gain insights a few answers at a time through signup forms, profile pages, polls, and other forms of progressive profiling.

It sounds simple, but writing a good question and collecting reliable answers is harder than it seems. Things can go wrong...

  1. Before you write a question
  2. When writing the question
  3. When writing answer choices
  4. Around the timing
  5. When analyzing the responses
  6. When repeating data collection

Let's talk about best-practices and things to look out for during each of those six steps.

1. Before You Write a Question

It's possible to go entirely wrong before you even begin with your progressive profiling efforts. Consider the following two things.

Always start by understanding exactly what you want to learn from your audience

What's your objective? Why do you want a certain piece of information from them? How are you going to use or operationalize that data point? Does that data give you the insights you want?

That last question gets at a disconnect that many brands struggle with. The goal isn't to collect data. Not really. It's to gain insights you can use to drive the desired outcome. Yes, you need data to get insights, but the two aren't the same thing.

A favorite example of data vs. insight is from B2C marketers who ask customers about their gender. Most of the time that data is used to personalize message content about products for men or women. However, a person's gender doesn't tell you what kind of products they want to buy, because they could be buying primarily for someone else or they could be interested in products for the opposite gender or both genders.

So, the better question is the more direct one: Are you interested in products for men, women, or both?

Don't ask questions you won't act on

Simply asking a question sets an expectation that you'll use that information to make the customer experience better in some way—even if you're just sharing it out with the community.

If you don't do anything with it, however, that can lead to disappointment. And it can lead to lower response rates for future progressive profiling efforts.

Also, gone are the days when you'd collect information because you might need it in the future... at some point... maybe. You don't want the liability of retaining data you're not using, so don't collect it in the first place.

2. When Writing the Question

Once you're clear on your objective, then it's time to craft your questions. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Craft questions that are universally understood

To the degree that it's appropriate, avoid jargon or technical language. If it's needed, consider providing quick definitions in parentheticals.

If your audience is international, think about non-native speakers, who might struggle to understand some long words, colloquialisms, and cultural references.

And finally, use unambiguous time windows, such as saying the past 12 months instead of the past year, which some might interpret as the previous calendar year.

Provide any needed context before the question

The primary concern here is that some people, once they've read a question, will skip to the answer choices because they're in a hurry. (And everyone's in a hurry.)

Another reason is that in the absence of immediate context, people bring their own context to questions, which forces your post-question context to work harder to override the respondent's initial thinking.

Avoid context and introductory statements that might impose a bias on answers

For example, you shouldn't ask, Given the current state of the economy, do you think now is a good time to change supply chain management software providers? You'll get more accurate answers without that introductory clause.

Ask judgment-free questions

Marketers are great at asking leading questions in marketing copy, but you don't want to do that in polls and surveys if you want meaningful results.

Sometimes that means you need an introductory statement or clause that gives the respondent cover to answer truthfully about something that might otherwise make them look or feel bad.

For example, you might preface a question with a clause like Recognizing that you don't have full control over your program... to make it easier for respondents to answer truthfully.

Recognize that people are bad at remembering past behavior

People provide the most reliable answers about now and the recent past. When you're asking about the actions of their organization, things can get even hazier, because the respondent may be relatively new to their company. Consider asking about actions or behaviors from the previous 12 months, at most.

Avoid redundant questions

The more questions you ask, the lower your completion rate will be. So try to ask as few questions as necessary. For example, a recent B2B lead-gen form that asked for both the person's country and world region. If you get the person's country, you can figure out the region of the world, so that question was completely unnecessary.

3. When Writing the Answer Choices

Most likely, the vast majority of the polling or surveying you'll be doing will involve answer choices rather than open-ended questions. So consider the following when crafting those answer choices.

Make answering easy

While this has a lot to do with the questions you ask, the answer choices you provide also have a major impact on how easy a question is to answer.

For example, here's a recurring question asked of marketers:

What percentage of your company's email marketing revenue is generated by automated and transactional emails?

  • Less than 20%
  • 20% to 50%
  • More than 50%
  • Not sure

Ranges make answering the question much easier, because the chances of knowing the exact percentage is low—and you absolutely don't want people to go hunting for information, because they probably won't come back.

Five- and three-point rating scales (e.g., Always, Sometimes, Rarely) generally produce the best results while keeping things easy.

Be careful when using subjective measures

Sometimes, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. Other times, it's not. For instance, some people think that an email deliverability rate of 50% is good, but it's actually horrible.

So, if you asked about brand' email deliverability, you'd likely get very different distributions if you ask whether their inbox placement was Excellent, Good, or Poor versus Over 95%, 90%-95%, or Below 90%.

Provide an N/A option

Even if answering a question is optional, give people the option to not answer the question by selecting N/A, Not sure, or Don't know—or a combination of those, such as Not sure or don't know. Otherwise, they'll guess or put down the answer they think you want to hear, degrading the accuracy of your responses.

4. The Timing

When you ask your audience questions depends on several factors, but the most consequential is whether the responses are useful long-term or short-term.

Answers That Are Useful Long-Term—for Many Months to Years

These include demographic information, such as a prospect's company name or industry, and technographic information, such as details about their tech stack.

That type of information doesn't change often, so answers are useful over a long period of time. It also means you can collect it throughout the year, over the course of multiple campaigns.

Answers That Are Useful Only in the Short-Term—for a Few Weeks or Months

These include, for example, whether prospects are attending a B2B Forum this spring and whether they're interested in attending an email marketing meetup. This kind of information is incredibly valuable.

However, such questions need to be asked close enough to the event to ensure respondents are certain they're going, but not so close that you don't have enough time to act on their responses.

5. When Analyzing the Responses

Get it all right up to this point... and you can still stumble when it comes time to interpret the results. Consider the following four issues.

A. Whether to Report N/A, Not sure, and Don't know Responses

Generally, such answers aren't meaningful, so it's best to remove this noise from your reported results.

However, it can be telling if, say, most or a plurality of respondents select those types of answers. That can signal that the technology, tactic, product, or whatever else you're asking about has low awareness, which can be interesting in and of itself.

It could also signal that your question is confusing.

B. Look for Opportunities to Simplify the Story

Just as you don't have to report your N/A answers, it's OK in some cases to roll together responses to tell a cleaner story.

For example, say you asked respondents to respond to a statement using a 5-point Likert scale of (1) Strongly Disagree, (2) Disagree, (3) Neither Agree nor Disagree, (4) Agree, and (5) Strongly Agree. In some circumstances, it might make sense to combine the two disagree answers and the two agree answers when reporting results.

C. Reporting Statistically Significant Results Across Segments

Particularly with demographic questions, brands often provide a long list of answer choices because they want more granular data. For example, they might ask about company size and provide lots of choices, such as Fewer than 10 employees, 11-25, 26-50, 51-100, 101-200, 201-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-2,000, ,2001-10,000, More than 10,000.

Reporting those responses is fine; it gives your audience valuable perspective on your respondents. However, sometimes, brands then try to report how each of those groups answered other questions. Depending on your brand's audience and how the survey or poll was fielded, you might have a relatively small number of respondents in some of those buckets—too small for the results to be meaningful.

In many instances, it makes sense to combine some answer choices. For example, in past surveys, I've rolled together respondents by company size into two buckets: 500 or fewer employees and More than 500 employees. That dividing line created two groups that were fairly evenly powered and provided interesting insights about the differences between what smaller companies and larger companies were doing.

D. Understanding Intent

Just as people are bad at remembering things that happened more than a year ago, they tend to be bad at predicting what they and their organization will do in the year ahead.

Experience show and depending on what you're asking about and how much effort, cost, and buy-in is required—fewer than half of respondents follow through on what they say they'll do in polls and surveys.

Needless to say, that's totally fine. Your respondents are answering to the best of their ability. That said, when you report the results, you shouldn't overstate the results of such intent-related questions.

6. When Repeating a Question, Survey, or Poll

Collecting data on the same question over and over (e.g., every year) is powerful, but there are a couple of issues to be mindful of.

Be mindful of changing previously asked questions and their answer choices

Doing so will likely render historical answers useless for comparison or trend purposes. Even changing an introductory statement or clause can change the responses so much that you can't compare them to past responses.

That said, if you've identified a serious flaw in the wording of a previous question, don't hesitate to reword it so you get more reliable answers next time.

Similarly...

Be mindful of controlling your audience

For example, if you promoted a poll question to your email and social audiences last year, but then this year you work with partners to have them also share your poll question, the poll results could be materially different because of that audience change.

That's not to say that expanding your audience is bad, but don't disregard that change when analyzing results.

As Privacy Protections Strengthen...

Companies need more ways to collect information about their customers and prospects so they can understand their audience better and create more relevant experiences.

Asking your audience questions through forms, surveys, polls, and other progressive profiling mechanisms is a highly valuable way of staying close to them and serving them better.

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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or email me at john@x2media.us


Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression." Always make it a good one!!

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

'Subtractive Innovation': Four Steps for More Efficient and Effective Marketing

'Subtractive Innovation': Four Steps for More Efficient and Effective Marketing

The concept of "less is more" has permeated our personal lives in one way or another, at least in part because of the rise of minimalism and the widespread popularity of Marie Kondo's philosophy of purging things in your home that don't spark joy.

In marketing, however, we often tend to veer down the path of "more is more"—addition, rather than subtraction.

Because we marketers are pressured to show the value that our marketing brings to a brand, that value often tends to be proven through addition: onboarding a new measurement partner to provide additional metrics, adding more data segments to an audience, adding new creative to a campaign to avoid fatigue...

We often find ourselves hyperanalyzing processes, documents, products, and resources in search of what can be added to make up for what is lacking.

It's almost as if it's hardwired in our DNA to think that problems stem from shortcomings and the only way to overcome them—to solve those problems—is to figure out what is missing in ourselves or our organizations.

Why do we default to addition?

It actually is natural instinct, it turns out: Humans instinctively gravitate toward additive approaches, even if it means more work, a study by two University of Virginia academics, engineer Leidy Klotz and social psychologist Gabrielle Adams, uncovered.

In one exercise for that study, participants were asked to make a pattern symmetrical by either adding or removing squares. Only 20% of participants opted for subtraction, despite fewer squares' requiring removal rather than addition.

So, just because we naturally gravitate toward a certain behavior doesn't mean it's the ideal or most efficient choice.

Enter the practice of subtractive innovation.

What Is Subtractive Innovation?

Forrester Research defines subtractive innovation as "a mindset and process aimed at improving a company's business through subtraction rather than addition."

Organizations that opt for a subtractive approach can often experience stronger performance from their employees (and increased happiness from simplification rather than overcomplication) as well as better end products and results.

A great example of the concept is the revered Dyson vacuum. Dyson noticed the inefficient experience of dust collecting with a vacuum bag. Instead of looking for parts to add to strengthen the suction or exploring alternative vacuum bag materials, the company instead invented a vacuum that removed the bag, which led to the creation of an effective product and a sustainable solution that generates less waste. And, by many people's account, Dyson is still the gold standard of vacuuming today.

Similarly, marketing teams often don't need to reinvent the wheel or build something new to improve a campaign or measurement. Instead, it's often the process of elimination that can engender true creativity and productivity.

Four 'Less Is More' Steps to Thinking and Acting Substractively

So how can you get started down the path toward thinking subtractively? Here are four key steps you can take as a marketer to lean into a "less is more" approach.

1. Pause and evaluate

The first step toward subtractive innovation is to start by stopping, which may seem counterintuitive at first.

However, it's important to pause and evaluate the tools and processes currently in place and whether and how much each contributes to the day-to-day success of your business or your marketing campaigns.

One way to simply conceptualize that process is to think about grocery shopping. To be an efficient shopper, you take stock of what you already have in your pantry and identify a list of ingredients you need before heading to the store. That helps you avoid unnecessarily accumulating three containers of garlic salt or wasting time and money looking for the garbanzo beans that don't actually have a place in your selected recipes.

The same concept applies to your organization: Take note of what you have and determine what you need before you start shopping for something new.

2. Consider what can be done with less

When Apple removed the earbud cord and released AirPods, consumers got to experience firsthand how having less enables them to do more. You can apply that approach to identify things that get in the way of efficiency.

Think of a current process that's in place and consider what removing a step in the process could result in:

  • Does eliminating a step remove red tape that prevents team members from taking ownership over projects?
  • Does it improve efficiency by decreasing the process timeline?
  • Does your organization have multiple analytics or research tools that have similar capabilities that accomplish the same business need?

Those are the types of questions you must start posing so that you can see the opportunity that subtraction offer for streamlining and freeing thinking and behavior.

An overly complicated marketing undertaking with a plethora of audience segments and creative versions doesn't necessarily mean it's the best approach to take.

Marketing initiatives that have the media budget sliced and diced in a million ways to run across multiple DSPs and myriad inventory sources, or that utilize every single creative type available, tend to result in cost inefficiencies and limited campaign learnings.

Opting for a more streamlined plan that focuses on the brand's core audience and message, and selecting platforms and inventories that best align with the goal, can be a more efficient and effective way to achieve success.

Negative targeting is another subtractive strategy to utilize to ensure media dollars are used as efficiently as possible. For example, maintaining an advertiser blacklist of sites and apps that are either not brand-safe or prone to suspicious activity ensures that impressions are being served where they matter most.

3. Implement guardrails for addition

The goal of subtractive innovation isn't only to remove but also to be mindful about what gets added.

To create a practice of thoughtful addition, develop a framework of conditions that must be met in order to add.

For example, if you want to adopt a new measurement tool, it's always important to keep the "why" at the forefront and consider how the addition of a new tool would help solve a business need. Also, take note of what measurement tools your organization already has and consider whether those tools have untapped capabilities that could solve your need without your having to pay for something new.

These are some thought-starters to use as a guide before adding:

  • Is there an applicable business case for this addition?
  • Does the organization already have a resource that can be used to fulfill the business need?
  • How will this addition improve efficiency or effectiveness, or both?
  • Can the problem be better solved through subtraction?

4. Encourage your organization to think subtractively

To weave a subtractive mindset into the ethos of your organization, you need to create a culture that applauds not only creation but also subtraction.

We live in a society that perpetuates the idea that addition is incredibly valuable. It's critical to recognize individuals or departments that have improved strategy or campaign efficiency through a subtractive approach; doing so prompts others to view subtraction as another avenue toward success.

A subtractive approach to innovation—and everyday work—can help unlock a new realm of possibilities for producing better end results. Removing extra steps in a process or streamlining your product by removing an unnecessary bell or whistle can lead to less friction and even cost savings.

Challenge yourself to go against the natural instinct of solving a challenge through addition, and instead take a moment to pause and shop your pantry first.

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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or email me at john@x2media.us


Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression." Always make it a good one!!








Wednesday, November 29, 2023

How to Craft the Perfect Cold Email With ChatGPT

A few years back, artificial intelligence was just a buzzword for tech geeks. But fast-forward to today, and it has become a hot topic for just about everyone—thanks in large part to ChatGPT.

So, what's the big deal with ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a natural language model that can generate human-like text based on prompts that you input. It's like having a virtual writing companion that can help you craft blog posts, SaaS product reviews, novels, poems...

And cold emails?

Cold emails often get a bad rap for being intrusive, generic, and spammy. In fact, only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response. Can ChatGPT help?

Yes, it can. With it, you can create personalized cold emails that generate responses.

The three tips outlined in this article will help you write cold emails using ChatGPT.

1. Enter thorough prompts specific to customer personas

The thing about generative AI models is that the content you get can only be as good as your prompts. Unless you're specific with your prompt, you'll likely end up with generic content that won't get you any meaningful results.

But why are prompts so important?

Prompts provide the context and information the AI needs to generate the desired output. So, if you want a personalized cold email, you must provide a prompt specific to your target customer personas. The prompt also needs to be detailed enough so the AI can understand your goals.

That said, these are the questions you should ask when inserting ChatGPT prompts:
Who is your target audience?
What are their pain points or challenges?
How can your product or service address those needs?
What's the purpose of the email? Is it to introduce your product or service, request a meeting, build a relationship?

Here's a detailed prompt for writing cold emails using ChatGPT that considers those tips:

Write a cold email to the sales manager at A&B Superstores. Their challenges include rigorous store inventory management and irregular balance sheets, which have proven to be time-consuming and tasking. Our solution is an automated inventory manager that streamlines the process. Keep the characters within 120 words.

Check out this result:

Although that email is a good start, it could be improved.

So let's personalize and make the email shorter. Here's the prompt that was used:

Can you shorten the email above, and also make it more personalized?

This is the result:
The concise email is almost ready, but it can be improved with personalized email greetings, a conversational tone, and persuasive language.

See the prompt that was used...

Can you refine the tone of this email to make it more friendly and conversational? Please add an exceptional greeting, too.

...so that ChatGPT makes the specified changes:
In the example above, ChatGPT has refined the tone of the email, making it more friendly.
But the email lacks a clear call to action. So let's add one to encourage engagement from recipients.

Let's use this prompt:

Can you add a compelling CTA to the email?

And voilĂ !

Now the email recipient knows to either reply to the email or give the sender a call to learn more about the inventory manager tool.

Like what was used in this example, insert as many specific prompts as needed until you're satisfied with your cold email.

2. Create a clear subject line

You've personalized the email and added a call to action. What next?

Now you add final tweaks to optimize the email for higher clickthrough rates and conversions. Think blog content optimization, but for a cold email.

Start by prompting ChatGPT to craft a catchy subject line.

The subject line is the gateway to your cold email. Your ideal customer is likely busy, so you want to pique interest quickly. Prompt ChatGPT to generate subject line ideas that are concise and compelling and will entice recipients to open the email.

This is the prompt that was used:

Can you share 10 catchy and concise subject lines for this email?

So, ChatGPT gives me these email subject lines:

But those email subject lines seem overly promotional. So let's prompt ChatGPT to tone them down and personalize them to address the recipient's pain point.

Recall that sales emails with personalized subject lines have a 35.6% open rate. So we can either mention the recipient's name or reference a shared interest or recent event the recipient attended.

Check out the prompt used to that end:

Can you write 10 personalized and engaging email subject lines for this email? The recipient's name is Jones, and they recently attended the HubSpot sales event. Please keep within 60 characters.


This is what ChatGPT generated:
One more thing: there's no preheader text.

The preheader text provides an overview of what the email is all about. We have to create one.

While you're at it, ensure your subject lines and preheader text are highly optimized for mobile view, as about 81% of emails are read on mobile devices.

This is the prompt that was used to get ChatGPT to generate preheader texts for the email subject lines it previously generated:

Can you reshare the above subject lines and add their preheader texts? Please keep them concise, within 60 characters, and highly optimized for mobile view.

Here's the result:
Finally, to make your cold emails more effective, apply some email copywriting tips while using ChatGPT.

Although ChatGPT-generated emails can be engaging and catchy, using those tips can further enhance your messaging and improve email deliverability.

3. Craft follow-up emails

As noted earlier, cold emails have an 8.5% average response rate. So, chances are, you will not get a response on your first try. However, sending multiple follow-ups to a recipient can double your response rate. We suggest sending three follow-up emails to demonstrate your persistence and commitment to your recipient.

To create a successful follow-up email with ChatGPT, start by addressing your previous email. Then offer helpful insights to solve the recipient's needs. You can also add value by sharing an informative article or useful tip, or connecting them with a helpful resource.

To get ChatGPT to compose three follow-up emails for the previous email, this is the prompt that was used:

Could you please share 3 follow-up emails for this same email for prospects that have opened the email but not responded? Reference the previous email and express genuine interest in addressing their needs by sharing an insightful resource. Add a lead magnet, too.

Check out the results:

Follow-Up Email #1
Follow-up Email #2
Follow-up Email #3
You can also employ FOMO to create a sense of urgency and get them to act faster. However, ensure that your tone is respectful and professional while conveying your enthusiasm and passion for your product or service.

You can use this prompt:

Can you please share a fourth follow-up to these emails leveraging FOMO to make them take the desired action?

Here's what was generated by using that prompt:
Finally, you can always use ChatGPT to fine-tune the language and tone of your follow-up emails, making them engaging and compelling without being pushy.

Crafting the perfect cold email has always been tricky. A great cold email that worked the last quarter could generate bad results today. So you must remain innovative in your cold email strategy and come up with creative content.

The good news is large language models like ChatGPT are making it easier to write cold emails. You just need to know what prompts to use.

Generative AI will give you a great starting point. Just add a touch of humanity to your draft, and it should be good to go.
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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or email me at john@x2media.us


Until next month. . . .remember. "you don't get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression." Always make it a good one!!