AWeber Communications, an email marketing firm, wanted to increase subscribers to their blog by optimizing their landing page through A/B Testing. They focused on stronger headlines, social proof, and a more direct call to action. As a result, opt-in rates quadrupled.
The Purpose
The goal of this campaign was to increase the amount of subscriptions to the blog, and make sure the current sign up process was the best it could be. Anticipating significant results, AWeber also wanted to use it’s test as an example for why A/B testing is important.
Old Page
Prior to the test, AWeber had a functional landing page in place since 2008.
New Page
Recently they decided it was time for a change. They found a number of successful blogs use the “X Reasons to Subscribe” format. This format states compelling benefits to joining the mailing list. Below is what they migrated to after a number of A/B tests and revisions. The results were almost 4 times as successful as their prior landing page above.
Why New Page Outperformed Old
Justin Premick, Director of the Education Marketing Team at AWeber, says this: “Looking at the pages side by side, it seems obvious that the 2nd one would do better. The “X Reasons to Subscribe” format is powerful stuff. And if that’s all you need to take away from this to go test your own subscribe page, that’s fine by me.”
Data for this case study was graciously provided by one of our readers, Crystal Gouldey, of AWeber.
How do you dethrone Google temporarily? You execute one of the most creative marketing campaigns of the year. It yielded 1.1 billion media impressions, took precious market share from Google, and got a book on the best-seller list. Bing teamed up with Jay-Z to launch his new book Decode by plastering all 320 pages of it — one page at a time — in different locations and in very unusual ways around the world for 30 days before the book was released for sale.
Primary Goal of Campaign
To drive millions of people away from Google to start using BING for Internet search and maps.
The Campaign
They began by staying true to each brand weaving Jay-Z’s very personal story, his journey through life and where it took him around the world, into Bing’s search and mapping technologies every day of the 30 day campaign. Each page of the book was reproduced and put into the real world in a number of innovative ways including on billboards, the top of parking garages, on building walls where Jay-Z grew up, to the bottom of a swimming pool. A website was created for the campaign where each day new clues were released on Twitter, Facebook, and Bing. You would then use Bing’s search and maps to “decode” the clue and find the location of the page and be the first to locate where the pages released that day were around the world. Over the 30 days, all the pages of the book were released so by the end of the campaign, you would have read the book.
Results
Average time a person was on the campaign’s landing page was 11 minutes.
Bing got 11.7% increase in visits to their search engine which finally tipped them into the Top 10 of most visited websites in the world.
The campaign yielded 1.1 billion media impressions
Jay-Z’s Facebook page grew by 1,000,000 fans
Jay-Z’s book, Decode was on the best seller list for 19 straight weeks.
Every major news channel and newspaper covered the campaign.
Large numbers of people started using BING for search and mapping over Google
This campaign became part of popular culture for an entire month.
Futurestate IT, a software company based out of Toronto went the swashbuckling route at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 held in Las Vegas to drive more traffic and new business to their booth. It worked. They used the power of a fun treasure hunt theme coupled with an 8 step social media strategy.
Goals Of Campaign
To promote new enhancements to their product offerings. Primary goals were:
Build a buzz around the theme and company name
Attract as many people to the booth as possible to generate leads
Be very interactive with the attendees to begin building a relationship
Get an initial conversation started for those who are highly interested in the solution
8 Touch Strategy
Microsoft Management Summit (MMS2012) was a technical conference attended primarily by “left-brain” techies. Left brainers tend to be more reserved, but not when they arrived at the Futurestate booth. See their Facebook page for almost 200 photos of attendees having a blast. Note – Futurestate jointly hosted the Treasure Hunt with Juriba, its technology partner.
#1: Create Landing Page For Conference
To get the buzz started early, a separate MMS Treasure Website (www.mmstreasure.com) was created to inform people who have registered for the conference that there will be a treasure hunt event. People were able to download treasure maps at their leisure, and many people did.
#2: LinkedIn Event
To inform people of the Treasure Hunt event, a LinkedIn event page was created to generate awareness. Posts were also made within the official MMS2012 LinkedIn event.
#3: Conference Guide Ad
In the event that people had not heard of the treasure hunt by the time they arrived at the conference, an ad was placed in the hardcopy Conference Guide, to inform and attract their attention.
#4: Vertical Banner at the Booth
To ensure that interested attendees could find the booth easily, a vertical banner was erected near the booth to direct the traffic.
#5: Lady Pirates play Pirate Blackjack
To keep the treasure hunt light and fun, attendees could play Pirate Blackjack at the booth with the resident lady pirates. This gave them a chance to spend more time at the booth, and be interested in finding out more about the company’s solution.
#6: Treasure Hunt Rules and Instructions
Postcards were printed, and included the rules for the treasure hunt. Attendees could take away the postcards, in case they forgot the instructions on how to find the treasure.
#7: Twitter
A Twitter page was created to allow the attendees to interact with the company. A picture was taken of each attendee that played Pirate Blackjack with the lady pirates. Pirate gears were then added to the photo to make attendees into pirates. The modified photos were then tweeted.
#8: Facebook
A Facebook page, complete with information about the pirate ship arriving in Las Vegas with the resident feline mascot Thomas onboard, was also created to generate interaction. Throughout the treasure hunt, the Facebook page allowed attendees to find their modified photos and share them.
Those attendees that were able to find their photo, share or re-tweet it to their friends, got a chance to win one of three prizes: Microsoft Kinect, or one of two $100 Amazon gift cards.
The company targeted generating 200 sales leads, 100 Facebook entries, 100 Twitter entries, and an increase in company name recognition.
Measurable Results
The treasure hunt occurred in a very short time frame, just over 2.5 days, coinciding with the exhibit hall days. The responses were tremendous, and well over the set target:
Leads
523 leads were generated, with duplicates removed. Many people returned to the booth to play Pirate Blackjack with the lady pirates, in order to get extra chances to get onto Facebook/Twitter. Of those who visited the booth, 40 leads were extremely interested prospects that the sales team could begin detailed conversation immediately.
Result: 260% of target
Facebook
193 photos were uploaded in the 2.5 days timeframe, of which many were shared.
Result: 193% of target
Twitter
283 tweets were sent, with 84 followers.
Result: 283% of target
“We set out to engage people, and to have them learn about us. The response was overwhelming, and people had fun while they listened to our solution story. I think it was a well balanced lead generation and relationship building exercise. It exceeded our targets, so I would consider this a huge success,” said Helen Ching, Director of Marketing for Futurestate IT.
ShipServ, a B2B e-commerce marketplace for the maritime shipping industry, sells to an industry that is not social media savvy and highly skeptical of, in their minds, an unproven way of doing business. ShipServ’s customer is a shipping supplier. To make money, those suppliers must pay ShipServ to list their offerings on the site.
The Video Campaign
They created a low tech animated video, “ShipServ Pages: The Movie” using Lego characters and even had a hero/star of the movie, Rex, depicting a typical owner operator of a shipping supply shop. Then posted it on their social channels, website and had their sales people send out emails to their leads with a link to the video. The goal was a low pressure approach to educate and entertain prospects and move them to try their online marketplace. Their CMO, John Watton reported that is was, “Highly successful. The innovation is really in how we’ve integrated it with our other social media and content marketing efforts.”
Cisco decided to use a social media campaign to promote the launch of it’s upcoming ASR 1000 Router Series. Cisco created a fun micro site to spread the word and grab public attention. Videos were cross posted to YouTube to extend reach. Cisco also created a Facebook group, an interactive 3D game and a custom widget to promote the ASR 1000 series. It featured the ASR 1000 series on it’s blog and sent a two paragraph teaser to press to fuel buzz. The product was launched online and launch videos posted on Facebook and YouTube. Cisco received a lot of sales inquiries through this campaign. Case Study
In 2002, SAP decided to use a social media campaign to promote it’s latest Web based platform – NetWeaver. There was a strong need to talk to the developer community. SAP Developer Network provided the perfect answer to bring together developers, customers and others interested in knowing more about SAP products. Discussion forums were added and people encouraged to post to them. These were followed by blogs and employees, customers, consultants were encouraged to post. Later, a formal Junior Blogger program was launched for newbie bloggers. The Premium Access Zone offered Premium Content and served as a great source for revenue. Case Study
Progress DataDirect, the world leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration, decided to adopt a social media campaignto spread awareness for its products and promote sales. Though the major focus was an online blog, the company also used twitter, facebook and podcasts to spread product awareness. The blog was used as an extended platform to communicate things which are hard to do using a website or a press release. The number of visitors being re-directed from the blog, twitter and company’s face book page to it’s website increased manifold and generated crucial sales leads. Case Study
The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft (MacBU), with a goal was to provide support to the Mac blogger communities and increase their visibility within these communities, initiated “Blogger Lounge” at the recent Macworld conference in San Francisco. The Lounge supported the Mac blogger community by providing free, fast internet access and a comfortable environment for people to write about their experiences at Macworld. In addition, people got a chance to meet fellow bloggers from Microsoft. The initiative turned out to be tremendously successful in terms that it received the presence of an average of 50 bloggers per day in the Lounge, 96 posts mentioning the Microsoft Blogger Lounge were posted also nearly 26 photos were posted to Flickr. Case study
Radian6 took support of social media to advocate its social-media-monitoring platform amongst marketing and communication professionals. For the same, they planned a webinar series to educate and attract marketing decision-makers who wanted to learn about social media but had yet to embrace it in their own activities. It also announced the program through emails, Facebook ad and word-of-mouth organizations. The campaign turned to be huge success as over 1,500 people registered for the first Twebinar and it generated significant blog coverage and website traffic from 71 countries including over 2,000 tweets that were recorded during the event. Case study
A campaign launched to reach a wide base of consumers for a new service of sniff (Social Network Integrated Friend Finder) by New Media Age mobile turned out to be huge success. To generate maximum awareness a multimedia news release was organized which included demonstration of how the services work, registration process, spokesperson interview and detailed Q&A session regarding sniff. The launch campaign was a sure hit, sniff website was able to log nearly 21,000 visits and 5,000 downloads of the Facebook application. Case study
