How to Use Testing to Create a Constant Competitive Advantage

Stop with the guesses and gut checks.

Too many content entrepreneurs opt for that strategy when figuring out how to motivate their audience to do what they want them to do.

Instead, adopt a testing program to make your conversions more strategic and effective.

Karen Hopper, performance marketing and test expert, shares how to do that – and a helpful testing template – in her Creator Economy Expo presentation. Here are the five things you can do:

1. Recognize what matters. No single call to action or button color will motivate your audience. In fact, as long as the button can be perceived as a button, you don’t need to test anything else. What really matters most is showing the right message to the right audience at the right time. Test anything that relates to that.

2. Answer this question: What motivates my audience to ______? Fill in the blank with a goal of your content business. Do you want them to sign up for a newsletter? Listen to your podcast? Buy an online course? Ultimately, the buyer must perceive that the cost of doing that activity is less than the benefit. (Costs don’t have to be monetary. It could be the price of having more emails in their inbox or a reduction in their time to listen to other podcasts, for example.)

3. Brainstorm ideas and craft hypotheses: Go through every single layer and every single touchpoint. What does the data say is most successful in converting the audience? Identify where you have the most potential to have the biggest impact.

Alongside your ideas, group your hypotheses about what could happen. Prioritize the ideas that hold more water.?

Testing hypotheses have other benefits, including helping identify the variables and keeping you focused on the mission. Karen shares this hypothesis example: “Including customer reviews on our landing page will increase conversions because potential customers will feel that their decision to purchase has been validated by peers.”

4. Create a testing tracker: Each test should include a unique name, a difficulty assessment on the change’s implementation, and the main metric for success (usually a click-through or conversion rate).

Karen’s testing tracker includes columns for test name, description, hypothesis, barriers to overcome/sea of sameness, audience/channel targeted, page where test will run, and ratings (1=low, 2=medium, and 3=high) for technical effort, expected impact, and learning priority. The final score includes a benefit score, which adds together the expected impact and learning priority ratings and subtracts the technical effort score.

Resource: Testing program template on Karen’s Small Data Big Idea resources page

You should implement the first test on the hypothesis with the highest benefit score.

Your tracker also can detail the testing schedule. Never run multiple tests at the same time because you wouldn’t know which test impacts the effects you’re seeing.?

5. Conduct the tests and evaluate the results: Pick the sample size using Optimizely’s free calculator or tool. Then, run the test for at least two weeks to normalize the data. Use the chi-squared test to see if the response rate is statistically significant. If not, don’t make any assumptions about the winner or loser in the test.

Evaluate and repeat the tests to validate your hypotheses. Build on what works and go back to the observation and ideation stage as necessary.

The Business of Content

• Joe talks about a few examples and some opportunities to think about when considering getting attention at half the price. (Content Inc.)
• Advertising continues to plummet for media companies and creators. How long will this ad recession last? (This Old Marketing)
• What advice do small business owners have? It’s rarely the same. (Index by Pinger)
• Here are 5 pieces of horrible start-up advice. (Entrepreneur’s Handbook)
• Digital Pass sales for Creator Economy Expo are ending soon. Get yours while you still can. Use code TILT100 to save! (Creator Economy Expo)

We Stan Nico Leonard

Entrepreneur: Nico Leonard

Tilt: Hot takes on luxury watches (and the celebrities who wear them)

Scene: YouTube (1.36M), Instagram (132K), Twitter (11.5K), God Tier merch, Pride and Pinion store

Snack Bites:?

• Nico created YouTube videos to save his pandemic-closed luxury watch store. He ended up with two enterprises – the retail outlet and a content business.
• Talking about watches could be boring to many except the most fanatic, but Nico’s vivacious reactions and hilarious takes on fakes and more are fun even for those not interested in timepieces.
• Though he started the YouTube channel under his retail business name, he soon learned his personal brand was the star and switched the name.

Why We Stan: Nico has an extremely niche tilt (luxury watches) that he elevates to a broader audience through his content delivery. He also is authentic, even turning down huge deals (FTX anyone?) when they didn’t feel right.

Read the longer story of Nico Leonard.

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