Test Engagement Content

Definition of Key Terms

Schedule -is a structure of a set of questions on a given topic which are asked by the
interviewer or investigator personally. Schedule contains direct questions as well as
questions in tabular form.
Questionnaire- data collection tool in this particular case, a prepared list of questions is
given to the test units. Questionnaires are appropriate for collecting information about
attitudes, interviews, motivations and past behaviors which are invisible in observation
research.

Content Testing`

Different forms of marketing research help businesses in different ways. Of late, many businesses have
been using content testing market research to improve the efficiencies of their marketing efforts.

In the past, market research processes (both in-person and online) such as in-depth interviews, focus
groups, surveys, quantitative studies, longitudinal researches, and secondary researches have helped
bring customers closer to businesses. These processes have also helped businesses

1. Identify business opportunities.

2. Reduce business risks
3. Create promotional materials that target audiences find relevant and relatable.
4. Discover which platforms are the best for advertisements.
5. Set realistic goals for their business and marketing aspirations.

However, most business owners now engage in these basic forms of marketing researches. To get ahead
of the competition, businesses are now investing in content testing market research.

What is ‘Content Testing?’

While conducting market research gives businesses specific directions they need to follow to grow their
customer base, it doesn’t equip them with the tools that help them create a meaningful impact on their
target audiences. For instance, market research may enable businesses to discover untapped market
segments. But that doesn’t enable businesses to realize what types of marketing contents customers in
these segments will appreciate.

Content testing is the process of analyzing what types of marketing message create the most impact on
target audiences. Data analysis tools, powered by artificial intelligence software, help businesses assess
large data sets in seconds. Based on this analysis, businesses can determine what type of messages,
offers, and marketing contents to its target audience will create the most engagement.

Marketing messages are a company’s voice. Correct messaging enables consumers to understand what
need a company’s product will fulfil. On the other hand, inaccurate marketing contents are glossed over
by customers. In an age where most brands are personalizing their marketing efforts, the need for
creating highly accurate and customized marketing contents has never been more urgent. Content
testing research is a key tool for brands aiming to make the most of their spending on marketing.

How Can this Content Testing Help Businesses?

1. Instant Feedback – AI-powered marketing messaging tools can help businesses instantly realize
what types of contents are effective. While other methodologies of market research take months
to produce verifiable results, modern-day content testing experts use advanced tools to provide
businesses with accurate messaging solutions within seconds.
2. Nuanced Insights - Modern-day content testing tools allow marketers to base their creatives on
data, not instincts. These tools assess information like the target customer’s history of purchases,
buying habits, time spent looking at specific products, etc., to create nuanced marketing contents.
Businesses gain in-depth understandings of their target customers. Plus, these analyses can be
constantly repeated, and the contents can keep getting refined over time.
3. Improved Chances of Lead Generation – The most advanced content testing tools can predict what
types of marketing contents will generate the most or the least leads. These tools create instant
rating scales where different types of marketing contents are scored on the basis of their lead
generation capacities.

Marketing is getting more expensive, but by using these tools, businesses can easily earn back what they
invest.

The Pros and Cons of Content Testing

Brand messaging is the brand’s voice. Accurate messaging allows consumers to understand the brand’s
value (why it is useful/worthwhile) and what it stands for. Successful messaging will portray the brand
promise and encourage purchase intent. Content testing research among the target audience is
important. There are many advantages to this methodology and one disadvantage that you should be
aware of.

Pros
1. Quick Feedback
Using an online survey to test methodology is a quick process. The questionnaire is often standard and
the research company updates it to incorporate the brand messaging that your brand is looking to test.
Other methodologies in market research can take up to two months to complete. If brand messaging
goes through the express route, a brand can have a preliminary report about the findings within 2 weeks
of kickoff.

2. Nuanced Understanding
There are a few key survey techniques that allow for an in-depth understanding of your messaging.
Highlighter Tool
The highlighter tool will allow for participants to highlight the exact parts of the messaging that they like
and dislike. Additionally, they can also include open-ended feedback to give further understanding for
why they like or dislike a certain aspect of the messaging.

MaxDiff
Using a MaxDiff methodology will also allow the brand to understand exactly how much a content will
lead to sales. The MaxDiff is a trade-off analysis technique that can help determine which messaging or
attributes directly influence the decision process. The MaxDiff is an alternative to a standard rating scale
that often leads you to believe every attribute is essential. This questioning forces respondents to make
choices between attributes, which results in a more robust data set.

Use this technique to prioritize which benefits/value propositions to incorporate and determine what
messaging to include.

3. Normative Data
In a content testing survey, respondents can assess the concept against a series of attributes such as
learn more, innovative, etc. Compare these attributes against overall norms.
In market research, norms (also called normative data or benchmarks) are baselines established to
compare your data against. It allows you to determine if the results are above or below par. They are
particularly popular in advertising and brand testing and allow a better understanding of how brands
and advertisements compare against the rest of the market.
Establish norms by creating an average aggregate of all the surveys commissioned by clients that ask
the same questions.

Cons
1. Removes Polarizing Options
When you’re trying to please everyone, you can end up pleasing no one. Therefore, it is important to
remember that polarizing messaging can be a good thing. It allows a brand to stand out from the crowd.
In order to avoid this happening after testing, make sure that the messaging is unique and
differentiating. For example, the winner of a content test is often low-cost or discounts – pick the next
most popular content. Low cost is not differentiating.

Content Testing Process

To get started with content testing, it is best to use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. For
e-mail contents and digital ads, analytics and other quantitative metrics can tell marketers which subject
lines, taglines, calls-to-action, or landing pages get the most conversion. Conversely, qualitative testing
 methods take advantage of customer insights so that marketers can understand how their contents are
perceived on an emotional level and why they are resonating (or not).

Qualitative research often involves customer surveys that ask poignant, open-ended questions that dive
deep into a customer’s motivations, preferences, and lifestyle.

Frame your content testing survey questions around these key areas:

Clarity, conciseness, and focus. Does the customer read your contents and have an instant
understanding of what you are expressing and what you want them to do next?

Customer benefits. Does your messaging answer the “what’s in it for me?” question? Do customers
clearly understand your brand’s benefits?

Hook. Does your messaging “hook” them in and make them want to keep reading?

Truthfulness. Is your messaging accurate and truthful? Do you avoid exaggerations and unsubstantiated
claims?

Language. Are you using language that your customers understand? Avoiding jargon or acronyms?

Social proof. Are you offering social proof in the form of reviews or testimonials?

Needs. Does your content uncover hidden needs? Are you highlights problems your customer didn’t
know they had and offering your product or service as the solution?

Get Started with Content Testing

If you are in need of new marketing contents for an impending product or service release, it is imperative
that you start content testing as early as possible to give you plenty of time to hone in on your strategy.

Try creating different versions of your marketing contents to see which one drives the best results.
Keeping these things in mind, you can see huge returns on investment to help you achieve your global
growth goals.

EXAMPLES OF MARKETING MESSAGES

Let’s say you sell aftermarket wheels online, and that you focus your marketing, advertising, and sales
in four areas:

 Website – People look at your homepage, and what do they see? Are you helping them understand
how your company and products stand out?
 Pay-per-click advertisement – You’re advertising for keywords that you know are valueable, but is
your ad text compelling? Are you getting lots of clicks, or getting lots of good clicks that turn into sales?
 Email Newsletters – You’re either emailing your previous customers or good prospects, which means
you’re reinforcing key selling points and trying to get people back to the website to buy. Are you saying
something that will get them interested?
 Incoming phone calls – When a customer calls with a question, is your staff helping the customer
understand how your products are different? Do they have a script to work from, and is the script
working?

These are just four examples of marketing messaging. If you think about it, you’ve got a message for
every type of customer and every marketing medium.

TOOLS AND METHODS FOR TESTING YOUR MARKETING MESSAGING

There are a lot of ways you can test marketing messaging, ranging from simple and inexpensive to
comprehensive and time-consuming. If you’re looking for a good place to get started with message
testing, here are a few methods to consider.
1. Poll your friends and family. The upside is that this method is cheap and easy, but the downside is
you might not get honest or unbiased feedback.
2. Poll your staff and clients. When you choose the people who participate in your poll, you can
influence the result. If, for example, you poll all your favorite clients, you can end up with a message
that works well for people who already like your products, but not so well for people who are on the
fence.
Likewise, when you poll your staff, you might hear what they think you want them to say, rather that
what they really feel. So, just like polling friends and family, you have to beware of bias. Still, testing is
better than not testing.
3. Run a basic A/B test one transaction at a time. Salespeople often use their own guerrilla methods to
test messaging. They may tell half their prospects one version of their pitch, and the other half a
different version of their pitch. Over time, they can figure out which pitch works best based on how
sales go. The same trick can be repeated by staff answering phones, over the counter sales staff, etc.
While this method isn’t super scientific, it’s not bad if you take the time to log results. Also, it’s important
to keep your tests simple…you don’t want to give completely different pitches to half your prospects,
as there are too many variables. Just try varying the feature/benefit you lead with, or changing one of
your features during your presentation.
Most companies we’ve worked with use a simple paper log – you log when the customer interacted,
what version of the pitch they got (a or b), and the result. At the end of the month, you’ll likely have a
better understanding of what messages work best on the phone or over the counter. You can then
transfer that info to your website, your emails, etc.
4. Do a website A/B test with a third-party testing tool on your website. This is one of the best ways
to fly, and it’s easier than ever to complete these tests on your website. You can invest in these tools
yourself, or you can hire an agency like ours to help you design and implement testing. We
recommend VWO, but Google Optimize is free and has some potential.
The big advantage in using A/B testing tools is that they’re scientific. Unlike the other methods listed,
you can be certain about the results you get. The disadvantage is time, cost, and complexity – all
the tools are quite capable, but there’s a learning curve for each.
If you setup a basic messaging test on your website’s homepage, you’ll get a good idea about how
consumers respond to different verbiage, different features, etc. If you have a lot of traffic, you can test
several messages in just a few weeks.
5. Pay for surveys and testing of potential prospects. This is an excellent way to test new messaging, or
to do a “reboot” and reconsider all your existing features and benefits. This method is expensive and
time consuming, but there are some tools that can help. Google Consumer Surveys is easy to use, and
while it isn’t cheap, it’s a heck of a lot more affordable than focus groups and one-on-one interviews.

a) Preparation of engagement schedule and Questionnaire

i) Schedule
Contains open-ended questions and close-ended questions.
Open-ended questions gives the respondent freedom when answering. Questions haveno multiple
choices therefore detailed
Close-ended questions these are questions with multiple choices therefore therespondent’s ticks
against what they concur with.
Following are the different types of schedules used by researchers
 Village or community schedule: used by census researchers who collect generalinformation on
populations, occupations among many more
 Family or Household schedule: It gives full demographic details of households, the status of
individuals, data on education, age and family relations
Opinion or attitude schedule: To schedule the views of the population regarding anissue.

ii) Questionnaire
Following are the different types of Questionnaire used by researchers
Structured questionnaire; In this case, each respondent is faced with identical or nearly identical
questions. Questions are also asked in the same order for all the respondents
 Closed-form questionnaire: It is used when categorized data is required.
 Pictorial questionnaire: answering a particular question based after seeing the pictures on a
particular theme
 Unstructured questionnaire: This tends to be reasonable conversation with the respondent
about a problem or issues with no particular set questions followingbroad outline or topics.

A schedule takes more time as to be prepared as compared to a questionnaire. A questionnaire has less
data collecting ability, can cover a very wide field of data and takes for itself and is self-explanatory,
compared to a schedule.

b) Similarities between Schedule and Questionnaire

i. Both have questions relating to a common problem.
ii. Schedule and questionnaire use mainly structured questions
iii. Questions are administered to all the respondents and comparable results areobtained.
iv. The instruments have to be used with the same general principles of designs.
v. In both, the central problem has to be concentrated upon.
vi. Considerations involved in the problem of evolving the questionnaire and aschedule as a
unit.
vii. Drawing the responding into a situation through awake and interest.
viii. Proceeding from simple to complex questions.
ix. No early and sudden request for information of a personal and embracingintimate nature.
x. Not asking embarrassing questions without giving the respondent anopportunity to explain
himself.
xi. Moving smoothly from one item to another.
xii. questions that are vague and ambiguous have to be eliminated
Pilot studies and pre-tests are necessary for formulating the instrument and for bringingthem to the final
form

c) Rolling out content for audience engagement

i) Close ended Questions/ ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ questions
These are simple questions that are easy to analyze often asked by a yes or no. they areeasy to answer
therefore becoming a beneficial aspect of customer feedback.

ii) Scale questions

Scale questions is used to provide more data than a close ended question latter used to come up with
scores based on the responses. Scale questions accumulates scores to show how satisfied a wide range
of customers are and they can be used for practically any aspect of the customer journey.

iii) Multiple choice questions

If you want to dig a bit deeper into customer satisfaction, then multiple choice questionsprovide ample
opportunity to do so. Multiple choice questions work similarly like scalequestions in that you’re offering
a range of options for respondents to pick from, but they cover more details as compared to scale
questions. Multiple choice questions couldbe used to segment obtained data based on the type of
customer. By doing this ideas are generated on what type of customer was satisfied the most and which
one was not.

3 examples of multiple choice questions

 Which best describes your job description? A) Director B) Manager C)Marketing
Executive
 Why did you visit our website today? A) to find out more information B) to
purchase a product/service C) to ask a question
 Which of our products/services have you purchased from us in the past? A)
consumer product B) industrial product
iv) Open-ended questions
These are the most valuable and the hardest to get responses for. Open-ended questions gives the
respondent freedom when answering. Questions have no multiple choices therefore detailed.
Just imagine how you would feel if someone slammed the door on your face? Well, that’s precisely what
your audiences do when you do not meet their expectations. What’s worse is that Google figures this
out as it shows up in your website’s stats, under ‘bounce rate’ and your rankings drop. The key to
avoiding this is by focussing on content that draws a higher audience engagement and that’s quite an
art. After all, your content is your biggest asset and by planning it wisely, you can decrease your bounce
rate in no time. All that you need to focus on is creating great content that draws higher audience
engagement and keeps your audience engrossed. Also, by creating such content, you unleash countless
monetization opportunities. That’s because you’ve managed to grab the attention of your audience and
unless they find your content useful, they wouldn’t spend their precious time on your content. That
brings us to the big question, which is ‘How to create useful content?’. So to make things easier, let us
now look into some quick tips that can considerably boost your audience engagement.

1. Plan an effective Content Strategy

Your success largely depends on the effectiveness of your content strategy, so you need to devise one
that instantly connects you with your target audience. You can do this by using survey tools that help
you gather relevant data directly from your audiences. These tools can be used to identify a common
problem area or to assess the effectiveness of a particular recommendation. In fact, you can collect
almost any type of data by running surveys and gathering information straight from your audiences. As
you would now deliver precisely what your audiences seek, there’s a better chance of higher audience
engagement.

2. Create useful and relevant content

Every business is eager to get on the top of Google search results, but ever wondered how Google’s
search engine algorithm works? Google wants you to create content that’s relevant and useful for
information-seekers. When you do this, the search engine’s algorithm ascertains it by taking into
account your website’s bounce rate and the time spent by your audiences to read, listen or watch your
content. The key to achieving better audience engagement lies in creating useful content and delivering
it at the right time. So merely posting on your website or your social media five times a day without
delivering actual value would only annoy your target audience. On the other hand, if you spend a lot of
time planning and strategizing content well in advance, it becomes a lot easier to connect with your
audience.

3. Meet the Expectations of your Audience

Content is the king and there is no doubt about it but the days are gone when more content meant
better search engine rankings. Now, the search engines want you to focus on creating content that
results in better audience engagement. So, you need to spend more time understanding what exactly
your followers or readers want and deliver that. As you would be giving them exactly what they want,
you can be sure that this sort of content would draw better audience engagement.

4. Ask more questions to ensure better Audience Engagement

To ensure better audience engagement, you need to be on their mind and the simplest way of doing
that is by asking questions and seeking answers in the comments section. If that’s not applicable to your
business or if that seems impractical due to the size of your audience, then we completely understand.
So, in such situations where managing responses from your audience can get difficult, here’s a little
trick. You can stick to asking rhetorical questions, which don’t really require an answer coming in.
Instead, rhetoric questions make your audience think more and that in turn ensures better audience
engagement.

5. Roll out Content at the right time

You could roll out the most comprehensive article on a highly relevant topic, but if you do that at the
wrong time, then all your efforts are in vain. So you should have absolute clarity on the behavioral
pattern of your target audiences. In case, you have global audiences (which is very common in online
media), then you need to find the rights subsets and cater to them.
So if you have 70 percent Canadians, 20 percent Australians and 10 percent British audiences, then you
need to work around Canadian and Australian timings. Get to know their habits, how they go about their
routine and then roll out content. For example, if you are selling Garden Supplies, then roll out content
over the weekends, when people are relaxed. After all, that’s when the hobbyists would find time to
nurture their hobby. Likewise, if you are promoting a textbook rental service then you would want to
do that just before the semester begins. You can then roll out content that promotes flexible rental
packages for the entire semester.

Marketers and publishers are under more pressure than ever to create engaging, high-quality content
that sets them apart from the competition. Similarly, fragmentation of media consumption is on the
rise. Consumers spend over an hour on five different devices each day. With all this mobility, media
outlets can start to look the same to consumers, and publishers are challenged with turning the casual
or “fly by” readers they have into loyalists that return repeatedly.

a. Introducing an Even Better Engage

Engage already powers content experiences for over 500 leading brands and publishers, like Red Bull,
Reuters, Hearst, Scripps, Fox Sports, and Bank of America. By working closely with customers to get a
deep understanding of their changing needs, you will be able to be even more powerful with key product
updates. Each of these updates make it easier to create engaging content experiences that are driven
by data.

b. Create, Curate, and Publish Content Effectively

Creating and publishing quality content is no easy task. It can be time consuming and expensive,
especially when content creation is siloed across multiple teams. The updates to Engage reflect the
growing need of our customers to be more effective day to day in order to see better results.
Engage will help your team work better together. Having a single place to create, moderate, and publish

content saves time and improves visibility.

There’s also need for moderation capabilities. This involves staging customers to plan, review and
organize content from multiple channels to create more relevant and on brand experiences. This
empowers your team to manage incoming questions and comments more seamlessly during live events
and across your digital properties.

c. Channel Your Creativity and Stand Out From the Competition

Realistically, from the audience’s point of view, everything has started to look the same. However, this
isn’t because marketers and publishers have become less creative, it’s a result of the need to create
more frequently and the lack of resources, people, and tools to consistently publish content that stands
out from their competitors and speaks to their audience.

All this added functionality translates into more effective content that informs, educates, and entertains

your audience.

d. Optimize Your Content, Foster Deeper Engagement, and Measure ROI

Tying content to results has always been a challenge, and many marketers and publishers still can’t
effectively measure content impacting their ability to optimize and see stronger results. We get this and
know how important it is for you to effectively track and measure the performance of your content. Use
Engage to set goals, measure audience engagement, and really start to understand how your content is
working to foster deeper engagement.

Use advanced analytics capabilities to track how your audience interacts with your content, see what
experiences drive the most engagement, and start to do more of what works. And, if capturing leads is
a goal, take this one step further and capture the information you need through your content to build
detailed profiles for site visitors. You can then narrow in on specific visitors to see when, where, and
how specific users are interacting with your content and begin to build stronger relationships with
content experiences that work best for them.

6. Give your audiences something to react to

You cannot expect your audience to stick around unless you engage them by giving them something to
react to. Doing this isn’t very difficult and you can do so by putting across a hypothetical situation and
making your audience think about how they would have reacted to a given situation. Now that instantly
connects you with them and ensures better audience engagement.

7. Invite a Volunteer

The most effective way to engage your audiences is by inviting one of them to participate. You can do
this by inviting guests to either comment, blog, or to simply participate in a live stream. Since the rest
of your audiences relate better with the volunteer, you are assured of better audience engagement.
Moreover, you can make it appear like a contest or a lucky draw just to make it more exciting. For
example, if you run a blog that teaches SEO, then you could declare that you would randomly pick one
of the blogs from the comments section and run a free SEO audit.

8. Share Success Stories

If you run a blog that imparts financial education on a regular basis and also sell some e-courses on the
side, then here’s what you can do to ensure better audience engagement. Find out from your students
about how they have benefited from your tips or courses and how much profit margin they have been
able to generate. You can then create video clippings, in which your successful students talk about their
achievements and how your course has changed their lives. This not only builds trust, but also motivates
your audience to buy your products or services.

9. Collaborate with niche leaders

Presently, we live in a world of social media, where Influencers play a pivotal role in audience
engagement and lead generation. By having a well-known Influencer on your video or podcast, you don’t
just grab eyeballs but also stand to gain from the goodwill of that particular niche leader. This also
ensures better audience engagement as you are probably collaborating with someone whom they
already follow. So, by teaming up with influencers in a particular niche, you can reach out to people in
a better manner and also increase the size of your audience. So you can benefit in many ways by
collaborating with trusted niche leaders.

10. Create Poll-based content

If you have a website, then at some point you are going to run out of topics to create content around.
So, why not run a quick survey on the most popular topics and deliver exactly what the majority want?
By connecting with your readers in this manner, you instill a sense of importance in them and that, in
turn, ensures better engagement. This also ensures that your efforts are directed in the right direction,
because you then create content based on what your audience expects.

11. Use Infographics

By using infographics, you can skyrocket your audience engagement considerably through platforms like
Pinterest and Instagram. You can create visual stories that are easier for the human brain to perceive
and process. Although most Experts have contradictory opinions, the fact remains that infographics still
work. However, what has changed is the manner in which you present it and its relevance to the rest of
the content that you have posted. Just like Google no longer tolerates keyword stuffing, it doesn’t
appreciate random infographics either.

12. Plan Webinars

The most ideal way to start planning a webinar is by choosing the right topic, something that your target
audience would look forward to. Stay away from highly specialized topics that may pique the interest of
only a few. You can always carry out surveys to narrow down topics that your audience is most
interested in. By involving your audience from the very start, you connect with them in a better way.
However, you must not organize webinars way too frequently, else it loses its significance.
Finally, Webinars are a great way to improve and enhance audience engagement, as it adds a personal
one-on-one touch. We say this because we strongly recommend that you use all the visuals that you
intend to, but also turn on your webcam and remain approachable. Then all you need to do is shoot out
a personalized email to your target audience and you are ready to start.

13. Contests and Giveaways

Who doesn’t like giveaways? Weekly contests and giveaways are one of the best tools to generate brand
awareness. However, before you get started with it, you need to have a clear goal and work around
it. You could also increase audience engagement by asking questions that compel your audience to skim
through your entire piece of content. However, keep it realistic and don’t give away expensive gifts,
right from the start. If you do that, then you attract those who are interested in the gifts and not your
content. Attracting such an audience isn’t desirable and what you need to focus on is an audience that’s
genuinely interested in the product or service that you are offering.

14. Add Videos

No matter what type of product or service you are promoting, adding videos can make it quite
interesting and result in better audience engagement. However, while interesting and well-crafted
videos can bring in better audience engagement, it could also work against you. So what matters is how
creative and attention-grabbing your videos are. Now this depends on the products or services you are
promoting and the manner in which you present them. Creative animated videos or explainer videos
are a good way to start. The golden rule of making effective videos is to always make it a point to hook
your audience in the first 3 seconds, as this ensures better audience engagement. So start from the
thumbnail and pique the target’s curiosity for at least the first 30 seconds.

15. Use the Storytelling technique

In the field of marketing, storytelling has proven to be one of the most effective techniques, that has
the potential to spice up even the most boring topics. However, to be effective at it, you need to ensure
that the story doesn’t focus on you, instead, it should focus on your audience. In other words,
storytelling is a narrative that connects your brand and your target audience and acts as a bridge
between the two. As this helps your audience relate better with your product, the likeliness of them
buying it also increases.