By Owen Fay . Posted on January 26, 202275 – 95% of Product Launches Fail Every Year.
Let this statement digest first, it’s shocking, right? Imagine spending a lot of money on research, development, marketing, sales, and other resources for a concept that people aren’t interested in.
Faulty return on investment is a nightmare for any business. However, the good part about failure is that you realize opportunities you may have never thought of. Concepts that get real feedback through testing are more likely to be successful from the start.
It’s obvious that you might not have unlimited chances to get your concept right, but that’s where concept testing comes in.
What is concept testing?
It allows you to understand customers’ acceptance and willingness to buy to make critical decisions before launch. There are a lot of concept testing methods but we’re going to focus on the most common one; usability testing.
Why is concept testing important?
Here are some of the reasons concept testing is important:
- Reduces the risk of failure.
- You get a grip on confidence regarding your product launch.
- The decisions you make are backed by actionable insights and statistics.
- Once you utilize concept testing, you tend to make the finest business decisions.
What is in the guide?
In this guide, we’ll provide you with information on how to create and run your own concept test. You’ll be given examples along the way too. We will teach you about what a concept test is and most importantly you’ll learn about building and launching a test with Poll the People.
The company is well-equipped with solutions to the problem and provides you with accurate results from the target audience. Here are just a few examples of concept testing that we’ve used;
Logo Testing
Choose a logo that fetches the attention of the consumer and is the best fit for your business while just focusing on more important work using Poll the People testing.
Ad Testing
How would you know your advertising campaigns are on target even before the launch? Testing your ads with Poll the People helps you to understand if they are right for your business.
Usability A/B Test
Usability A/B Testing is done in minutes, not days on Poll the People, if you’re a beginner why not have a look at the perfect guide for beginners?
There are many other use cases for concept testing through Poll the People. Check out our website for more ways you can concept test on the platform. Let’s dive into how to successfully run a concept test.
Understand Your Goals
The beauty of concept testing is that you get to understand your goals and gain confidence in your decisions. One of the most important parts of project planning is setting specific goals.
What’s the goal of your test? What type of response are you looking for? How will you use the data once you’ve gathered it? These are all the questions for which you will need to find the answers. The first step is always a defined goal.
Set A Goal For Your Test
A vague goal is nothing but an issue for a concept test or any other choice your business makes, but a specific goal can bring out the most reliable results. Most of the time, people only have a general idea of what they want to test but they don’t put more effort into turning that idea into a specific goal. Adding this step to the procedure can increase the quality of the feedback received.
Writing Specific Goals
By writing specific goals, you tend to require a minimum amount of responses as you prefer a high level of certainty from the test. It also minimizes the time and effort required and the most significant part is that the feedback is also specific.
Using The Right Test For Your Goals
Once you have determined your goal, it’s time for you to put some focus on building the concept test and choosing the right layout. The type of test you run depends on what you are testing and the specific goal you set for the concept test.
Test Design
Now that you’ve determined your goal and have chosen the right test, the next step is to build an appealing test design. A concept test completely revolves around its stimuli. What are the stimuli? It is simply a modern market research term for the individual concepts, names, ads, or other creative. Stimuli are covering these four entities;
Text
To briefly give the respondents the context of the test, the text used will help them understand the test and give the best feedback possible. Allowing them to clear their expectations regarding the concept test. It’s in a bold, large, and attractive explanation of the concept being tested, making it more prominent than the rest of the content. It tells exactly what we are testing. To make the whole procedure less challenging, try being specific in the question, like this;
Think about the name “Badhours”. What messaging fits best with the brand name?
Images
In this 21st century, clear and high-resolution images are always preferred. As an example, you can learn how to avoid logo mistakes. Worldwide, more users are using their phones than other devices, always check the appearance of the image on mobile devices. Sometimes web page designs don’t come out as you expect them to be.
Video
Before you add a video concept test, consider where you’re going to host it first. Websites such as YouTube have made the procedure much easier. In case you’re concerned about the privacy of your video, you can refer to sites such as Vimeo. Similar to images, think about how the video will look and feel to the audience.
Audio
If you are testing audio, make sure it is clear enough to be heard by the users. Same as you’ve done with the images, try listening to the audio on different devices too, in order to make sure it is compatible.
How to write the questions
The questions you ask are a pivotal part of your test. It is highly suggested to ask specific questions including the detail that can achieve your goal. While the stimuli might be what you’re testing the question you ask about the stimuli is just as important.
The questions you ask will drive the data and determine how valuable the feedback is. If you’ve read this far you understand how important specific goals are, and this is where it pays off. The metrics and insights you receive depend entirely on your goal.
A few things to consider are appeal, believability, purchase intent, relevance, uniqueness, and value. Considering these metrics will help you create the question that achieves your goal.
Building the Test
The goal is decided, the stimuli is better than ever, and you’ve created some good test questions. Here’s the good news, you are all set, to begin with, your concept test.
All that is left is to arrange it all into a quality test design. Poll the People makes it very easy to design your concept test with different template designs. The platform also allows users to test everything from images and text to audio and video. You can test any of your new concepts and quickly gain feedback that allows you to confidently launch the best version.
Launching The Test
Before launching the test and getting responses from your panel, you need to determine the sample size of your survey as it can heavily affect the results. The size of the sample is closely linked with the margin of error, budget, and feasibility. Determine the level of statistical significance you make to make your concept testing results reliable.
Analyzing the data
You are all done with the survey as the responses are recorded. Determine the winner and focus on why it won. Don’t worry, feedback and statistics will aid you in this.
Poll the People’s results dashboard gives you the statistical winner, margin of victory, and lets you filter the feedback. Finally, you have the green light to roll out the winning concept, or you can make more amendments to it.
Conclusion
Now that you know what a concept test is, why it’s so important, and how to successfully do concept testing you can start testing all of your new products, features, or ideas. You’ve started from an idea, created goals, and gathered insights on your concept.
With statistical significance, you can roll out your concept or have the confidence to convince others that it is the best option for your business. Poll the People makes it much easier to create, launch, and choose the best version of your concept.
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