eWISE - News for Multichannel Merchants
• CASE STUDY: Online A/B Split Testing Leads to Stronger Web Results
• The Bud Report: Welcome & What’s on the Horizon
• From Around the Industry…
• Timberline News: Welcome Tom Funk, VP of Client Services!
CASE STUDY: Online A/B Split Testing Leads to Stronger Web Results
The Challenge: When Legacy Parenting Company, which markets and sells a parental support program for parents of kids with behavior issues, was interested in driving more sales through TheTotalTransformation.com, Timberline looked at the success they had in other media as well as other Web sites for inspiration. They had a full library of powerful video testimonials and a list of potential offers and messages that might be appropriate for the online audience. But, which message would work best?
Timberline’s Approach: While Timberline could not predict what would best promote and sell “The Total Transformation” online, we offered to test to see which messages, online videos, and methods performed best. Due to seasonal variations and offline marketing efforts, it was not desirable to test promotions one at a time. Instead, an online split test needed to be developed to eliminate as many variables as possible.
This proved to be no simple task. First, visitors to the site always had to be shown the same messages and offers over multiple visits. A consistent version of the site needed to be delivered to a given online customer.
The Plan: A split testing system was developed that enabled Legacy to create as many different versions of a page as desired and have them served to different site visitors. As designed, the system served the variations of the site in sequence to sequential visitors, not randomly, thus guaranteeing an even split. The system tagged visitors as belonging to a particular page version group and always served the same page versions to that visitor.
A sophisticated analytics tool was used to track conversion rates of each visitor type as well as to maintain a count of the number of unique users assigned to each group.
“Timberline’s expertise in online marketing has been very, very valuable to us. Our expertise is in helping parents of kids with behavioral problems, not Web marketing. We do know, however, that the benefits of our program are different for some populations, such as Single Mothers, than for other populations, like parents of kids with Oppositional Defiance Disorder – ODD or ADD.
Timberline’s solution provides us with a very flexible and powerful way to test different things on our Web site so that we can show the benefits of The Total Transformation Program to a wide variety of different kinds of parents.”
— Eric Winter, Vice President Internet Business, Legacy Parenting
The Results: Thanks to A/B split testing, Legacy Parenting was able to track how different content impacted visit duration, navigational paths and conversions — and to identify the cost-benefit of introducing new videos and other content to their Web site.
The Bud Report: Welcome & What’s on the Horizon
I’m thrilled to launch this Timberline Interactive newsletter. I spend a lot of time on the road at Internet marketing and e-commerce events, where I soak in important information to share with our staff. I’ve also always wished to share it with clients and others throughout New England who don’t have the opportunity to attend—and this newsletter is now the vehicle to do so.
The direct marketing industry is constantly evolving, and it is our mission at Timberline to keep up with the latest trends and tools. Quarterly, I will attempt to provide a brief overview of the current e-commerce landscape for direct marketers in our region.
At the March conference of the New England Mail Order Association (NEMOA), an interesting panel discussion featured marketing execs from Crate & Barrel, Nordstrom’s, and LL Bean. The topic was allocation of multichannel marketing dollars, i.e. with so many marketing media and ordering channels, how do we decide which gets “credit” for a sale? And if a particular channel gets credit, does it deserve more resources in the future?
This is the biggest challenge facing direct marketers today. These executives all had their own approach to matchbacks and data management to garner useful metrics for decision making. However, it was clear that not even these large companies have it fully figured out.
I must admit this was somewhat comforting! But it should not reduce the effort we all put into making well-informed marketing decisions. This means paying attention to your RFM metrics and your web analytics. As our industry gets more competitive, and margins are shaved ever thinner, we all need to know our numbers.
Thanks for listening, and I look forward to your feedback!
Kind Regards,
Bud Reed,
Founder and President
From Around the Industry…
• Lake Champlain Chocolates increased its email marketing sales by 50% in Q4. In a webcast by email vendor Bronto Software, LCC’s Greg Tickle discussed how to successfully plan holiday email marketing campaigns, maintain clean lists and communicate with email contacts (http://bronto.com/customers/podcast/on).
• Vermont/New Hampshire Direct Marketing Group holds its annual conference May 2 – 4 in Newcastle, New Hampshire. Among the speakers are keynoter Erin Flanigan of Timberland, Doug Cadmus of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Max Harris of Gardener’s Supply, and Timberline’s own Bud Reed. (Contact 888-886-4364; www.vtnhdmg.org)
• Orvis promoted Ray McCready to president. Macready had been vice president of merchandising and retail. Perk Perkins, whose family bought Orvis in 1965, will remain as CEO.
• WCAX-TV 3 News reported record-breaking Easter sales by Dakin Farm and Lake Champlain Chocolates. LCC sold more chocolate than it did during Christmas, normally its busiest season. Dakin Farm sold 1,000 hams in a week, up 15% over last Easter.
• A steep hike in postal rates was the subject of a town-meeting style discussion led by Garnet Hill president Russ Gaitskill at April’s NEMOA conference in Cambridge, MA. Mail-order catalogers are facing bulk mail rate increases that could be as high as 25%.
• L.L. Bean's annual sales hit a record $1.5 billion for its fiscal year ending Feb. 25. Online orders grew 13%, for the first time eclipsing phone orders. Bean’s board thanked employees with a 7.5% bonus totaling $25.5 million.
Timberline News: Welcome Tom Funk, VP of Client Services!
Timberline Interactive is pleased to announce the hiring of Tom Funk, who for the past six years was Web Manager at The Vermont Teddy Bear Company. Tom’s arrival in his new role as Vice President of Client Services means significantly increased marketing manpower.
As Web Manager of The Vermont Teddy Bear Company and its sister brands including Calyx & Corolla and PajamaGram, Tom was responsible for site development and management, search engine optimization, and e-commerce performance for Web sites transacting over $46 million in sales and at peak times transacting over 2,000 orders an hour. He has extensive experience in search engine advertising, user experience, and online merchandising. Welcome Tom!