By Owen Fay . Posted on January 10, 2022Creating brand messaging will convey your brand’s value proposition and establish the language you use in your content.
You probably have some ideas for how to market your brand and what you want your audience to take away from your messaging.
You’ve narrowed it down to a few options but don’t know what version will represent your brand in the best way possible.
If you choose the messaging you like the most, you could suffer from individual bias. It could affect you in the future with negative feedback from your users.
What if you could ask hundreds or thousands of people what brand messaging works best for your business?
Usability A/B testing is a great way to make your decision with real feedback from customers. It is an effective method to reduce the risk of negative feedback and make the right choice the first time.
Imagine: You have two versions of your brand messaging and you go with the wrong one. This can cause backlash from your users and cause a lengthy rebranding process.
It would be great to get it right with testing – before going live.
How A/B Testing Works
You start with two messages and then the two variations (A and B) are shown to a panel of users that choose the best one.
Usually, when creating resources for a new business we ask a few friends for their opinion. Like choosing the one you like the best this method doesn’t give you significant results and can become exhausting.
A usability A/B test gives you the ability to get feedback from hundreds or thousands. Your messaging is presented to an audience of (say) 200 users who vote on your brand messaging.
This audience doesn’t just choose the option they like the best but, they give you detailed feedback on why. This gives you the confidence to go with the right brand messaging – before launch.
Here is an example of usability A/B testing brand messaging:
Once the responses are recorded, you go with the brand messaging that won the test. You have confidence from a large audience in your choice.
One of our favorite things about usability A/B testing is you can do all this in a few minutes – not days or weeks like traditional testing.
Set a goal for your test
Your brand messaging will establish your brand’s identity and prevent your communication from straying off-brand.
You probably came up with your messaging through brainstorming or through some research on the industry you’re in. This most likely gave you multiple options.
Now the problem is: how do you choose the best one?
The key is to narrow down the options to two finalists. You can use your own judgment or ask a few friends (which could be biased). Once you choose your two finalists they compete in a usability A/B test.
Choose a Platform to Run Your Usability A/B Test
You have two brand messages and want to make a definitive choice.
How do you implement a test before going live?
Most people don’t have experience as computer engineers or programmers. Luckily, you don’t need either to run a test.
There are a lot of tools that can help you.
Poll the People give you an easy-to-use testing platform. It’s quick to set up (about 5 minutes) and the test can be done in less than an hour.
If you want to save time and money this is a great place to start. Poll the People gives you detailed reports and valuable feedback from your test.
You can easily analyze the information to make a decision and optimize brand messaging. (It’s also free to signup)
UserTesting and Wevo are other options but are more expensive and require sales contact.
Setting Up The Test
The next step is to set up your test. For this blog, we are going to use Poll the People but the best platform for your business will vary.
The good news is it only takes about 5 minutes.
First, we are going to log in to pollthepeople.app and click “text” under recommended polls.
Now we are going to set the test questions.
Keeping it simple like “Which brand messaging do you prefer?” works the best for these tests.
Next, you set the number of respondents. For most simple tests about 100 is a good start. This should give you enough data and confidence to make the right decision. It should also cost less than $50 (which is always nice) and complete in less than an hour.
If you need more feedback simply increase the number of responses on your test.
That’s it, quick and easy. Now just checkout and your test will run instantly.Â
Understand the Data
The usability A/B test will help you make the final decision. But the feedback will help you to understand why people are drawn toward one version over the other.
Now that you have the feedback how do you analyze it?
The first thing to look at is what won and by how much.
The greater the margin of victory the more confidence you will have in your choice.
Next, look at the feedback from the audience, each user has to provide a clear explanation to their choice. Giving you the key data into the wisdom of the masses.
Conclusion
Usability A/B testing is one of the best ways to confidently choose the best messaging for your new business.
It lets you choose the final brand message with full confidence that your audience will respond to it positively. You save you and your business valuable time and money on re-work in the future. With clear feedback that can help you validate your decision (in case you need to convince your boss or business partners).
If you still haven’t started usability A/B testing your business’s resources consider running a test in the next few minutes.
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