The Little Number That Made a BIG Impact

I had fun completing an online quiz the other day. It was simple enough, but I learned a couple of valuable lessons, too.

Firstly, trust your instincts.

Secondly, 0.21 is a big number.

To explain: there were eight pairs of direct response ads, where essentially only the headlines were different . In each pair, there was a winner and a runner-up, as measured by the response they got when split-tested. Now, with some of them the difference in results between best and second-best was quite small - just a few percent.

A couple of the margins were much more significant, though. One, from memory, was about 45%, and another, 21%. Clearly, the one that 'failed' by 45% wasn't very good, but the differences in the 21% pair were smaller. Still, 21% is a big margin. One would be substantially more profitable than the other (by much more than 21%, incidentally - perhaps over 100%*).

So, clearly, they had to go with the better one. After all, 21% is a lot, but over 100% is massive.

Now consider the actual response results: amazingly, the 'winner' drew just 1.21% response and the loser (obviously) a mere 1%!

When clients worry about response rates of 2 or 3 percent they're missing the real picture: does the direct response campaign bring in more than it costs? is the first question that matters; can we improve it by a fraction of a percent and maybe double its profitability? is the second.

The mass mailing of that 1.21% letter, by the way, did very well indeed for the client concerned.

Oh, and the first lesson, about instincts? I made the mistake of listening to the advice of 'gurus' and voted for a couple of headlines I really didn't like. I'd been led to believe I was in a minority, though, and went for specific numbers and longer headlines (this was the US, after all). On those, I was wrong. Snappy headlines worked every time, even in the USA. Too many numbers just cluttered the ad and probably confused and deterred readers.

Which goes to show you can't believe everything advertisers tell you - even their advice about advertising!

Roy Everitt, Writing for Results

* The cost of mailing a poor ad is the same as that of mailing a good one. If the product sells for, say $100, costs just $10 to make and you sell a thousand, you get $90,000. Then deduct the cost of the mailing to calculate the profit. If you've spent $72,000 dollars on mailing, say a hundred thousand homes, you'll be left with $18,000 profit. Now, increase the sales by 21%, which equates to another 210 sales at $90 - that's another $18,900 pure profit, giving a better than 100% improvement - from 0.21% increased response!