Case Study: This is Why Your Marketing Material Needs Voice
September 27, 2018
In the internet age, the consumer’s attention is the hottest commodity of them all. This case study demonstrates how using voice in your marketing material can drastically improve results.
If there is one thing many businesses underestimate, it’s how difficult it is to gain (much less hold) someone’s attention. Internet consumers may have the shortest attention spans of any human beings in history.
If there is one thing, then, that they tend to overestimate, it’s how interesting they are. Business owners are confident their content is impactful, but fail to recognize how flat it falls on consumer’s ears.
These miscalculations make for a bad combo that leaves business owners wondering why nobody pays attention to their message.
The problem is not that they don’t offer value. It’s that they don’t capture attention by developing a voice for their content.
Developing a brand voice is the antidote for the splintered attention spans of web surfers. It’s not just what you say, but how and when you say it that matters. People like to buy from other people, and voice is what projects personality into your brand.
Many business owners, initially, find this idea trite. They just want to keep things straightforward. This is an understandable sentiment, but it’s not sales savvy.
This case study on content used to recover abandoned carts demonstrates what we mean.
A Personable Voice Recovers Screen Sales
Marketing 360® works with a custom window screen manufacturer that sells through their eCommerce website. Overall, they’re very successful (read about them in this case study).
However, one area where they struggled was abandoned carts, where email campaigns were recovering only .05%. We considered this unacceptable.
The email that goes out is text and a dynamically pulled image of the product the shopper abandoned. To our point, the email originally created by the business owner was utilitarian.
Click this link Complete Your Order and use coupon code MetroAC to take 10% off each item.
Gets the job done to communicate the idea. But there are balls of lint with more voice than this email. It simply wasn’t inspiring anyone to go back and make a purchase.
So their marketing executive decided to re-write the email with a sequenced delivery. The objective was to add some voice to the text so it would catch people’s attention – and capture more sales. Here’s what we came up with.
1 hour:
Hey %%FIRSTNAME%%,
We got our tools out, a big smile on our face, our eager to please staff was anxiously holding their breath, and then… you left! Not to worry, we’ve saved your cart for you.
Here’s what you left behind:
%%CARTCONTENTS%%
Have no fear, it’s not too late. Click this link Complete Your Order and use coupon code MetroAC to take 10% off each item.
Here is what we offer that you just can’t find at the big box stores:
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Custom built screens, made to your exact specifications
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Quality material that is built to last (yes there is a big difference)
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Real staff members standing by to help you with your order (call 888-219-xxxx)
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Numerous options and features from nearly invisible screens to super screens that will stand up to the toughest pets.
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Built by professionals and most items SHIP FREE!
1 Day:
Hey %%FIRSTNAME%%,
Believe me when I tell you, we get it. Ordering screens can be complicated. Measuring, hardware, screen options. It can get overwhelming! Lucky for you, at Metro Screenworks, we’ve made the process extremely easy. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff is waiting by the phone at this very moment to assist you with ordering your screens: 888-219-xxxx
Prefer to do it online? We’ve created a ton of self-help videos that easily break down the steps to measure, identify the hardware, mesh options and frame. Here they are (links to website):
- How to measure a window screen
- What hardware you need
- Screen Mesh Options
- Frame options
For your convenience, we’ve saved your cart for you. Here is what you left:
%%CARTCONTENTS%%
To complete your order right now, just click on the link below:
Complete Your Order
Don’t forget coupon code MeteroAC for 10% off your entire order!
3 days
Hi %%FIRSTNAME%%,
It’s been 3 lonely days since you first graced our store with your beautiful mouse. I thought we had developed such a great relationship, it was like love at first click. You browsed around, even put some things in your cart. And then, nothing.
Hey, we get it. People get busy, they get distracted, but never forget what brought us together on that star-crossed day. You need this stuff:
%%CARTCONTENTS%%
Us, with our amazing customer service, free shipping on most products and unmatched quality. We’ll never forget, and we’ll never stop waiting. Just know this, as a parting email in our automated abandoned cart journey, we’d like to offer you 10% off your entire purchase.
Click here to be magically transported back to that wonderful place you left us 3 long days ago
Complete Your Order (link)
The Results
When the marketing exec showed the livened-up emails to the client, he didn’t like them. He thought they seemed corny, and didn’t want to use them. The ME convinced him to go with it for a month.
After 30 days, the recovery rate jumped from .05% to 2.33%. In the next month, it jumped to 8.35%:
The first month, they recovered on 10k in sales that would have been abandoned.
In the second month, they recovered nearly 19k in sales that would have been abandoned.
This is statistically significant data we attribute to the personalized voice and timing of the emails.
Nothing trite about those results.
The moral of this success story is simple. You can’t communicate a message to people who aren’t paying attention to you because you’re boring. And you’ll sell more when you have a brand voice that gives a feeling of there being a real person behind the content.
If your conversions are lacking and you’re suffering from drabness syndrome, give your content some voice. When you can get people to smile, they’re a lot more likely to break out their credit card.
*Results are based on past client performance. Individual account performance may vary. Results are not guaranteed.
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