Asking the right message testing survey questions will help you understand how to connect with prospects and customers. While tone, word choice, and mode of delivery matter, the intent, meaning, and relevance of your message play an outsized role. Understanding what messages work will help make your marketing programs more effective.
To ensure your messages are effective and resonate with your customers, you will want to engage in asking message testing survey questions. Marketing communications take effort and expense. Before making that investment, it is essential to do market research and test your messaging on survey question respondents.
Patiwat Panurach, NewtonX’s VP of Strategic Insights and Analytics suggests: “You will want to test aided and unaided recall of your messages, how respondents perceive them and what drives their perceptions. Do they understand, believe and value your value proposition? Is your promise compelling?”
Markets and customers change, especially in a competitive environment where product and service innovation are rapid. Message testing survey questions should be done on a regular basis to ensure your messaging drives home.
What is message testing?
Essentially, message testing involves the trial and error of various versions of your marketing messages. It’s an experimentation process that allows you to discover which messages result in the most leads and sales. To conduct a successful message testing campaign, you should begin by making small alterations to your messaging. Then, you can compare entirely different concepts for assessment.
Continuous testing is imperative. Market research involving message testing must be an integral component of your marketing strategy because it helps align your brand’s narrative with your target audience. To enhance brand loyalty, we’ve created a brief guide to aid in your messaging testing endeavors.
Message testing vs concept testing
Message testing and concept testing are sometimes confused, but they are different.
- Use concept testing to determine what product or service ideas, features and benefits customers value.
- Use messaging testing to measure how well what you say in your marketing communications works.
How does the message testing process work?
Getting started with message testing survey questions involves utilizing a blend of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. When it comes to email messages and digital advertisements, quantitative metrics and analytics can assist marketers in determining which subject lines, taglines, calls-to-action, or landing pages result in the most conversions. On the other hand, qualitative testing methods use customer insights to help marketers comprehend how their messaging is perceived on an emotional level and the reasons for their resonance (or lack thereof).
Customer surveys are frequently employed in qualitative research, asking meaningful open-ended questions to delve into customers’ preferences, motivations, and lifestyles. This strategy helps marketers gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ opinions and thought processes regarding the messaging.
Why does message testing matter?
Marketing and sales are a significant expense for most companies. Basing your marketing messages on bad data is a costly mistake. Those investments can go to waste if you are promoting the wrong message and trying to sell with ideas that don’t interest and motivate buyers.
With a strong messaging testing survey question program, you will be able to go to market with powerful messages that connect with customer priorities and needs—and that are both trustworthy and persuasive. You will also avoid saying the same things your competitors say, so that your brand can stand out in a memorable way.
Salesforce has made effective use of message testing in preparing for its highly popular Dreamforce conference. They used Custom Recruiting to capture insights from specialized audiences, then used that information to plan, message, and promote the conference.
14 key message testing survey questions to ask
The first step in message testing survey questions is to prepare the message. Perhaps it is a positioning statement, an email message, a brochure, or an advertisement. Then ask your respondents the following questions:
- What is your first impression? What are the first thoughts that come to mind?
- What words or phrases attracted your attention?
- Which do you remember?
- What did you like about this message? Do any words and phrases stand out as positive?
- What don’t you like about this message? What words and phrases are negative, don’t fit, or are irrelevant to you?
- What do you think is the core message this piece is trying to communicate?
- Is there anything that you don’t understand in this piece?
- How clear do you think this piece is?
- How relevant is it to you?
- What is missing?
- Is there anything you would change? If so, how?
- Who do you think this piece is trying to reach? And how well does it do so?
- How does it compare with other messages you have heard from other companies?
- Are the ideas different or special?
Conduct message testing surveys with NewtonX to improve your marketing programs
Ask the right people your message testing survey questions. You will want to test with existing customers, past customers, and prospective customers. It is vital that you test messages with and get a survey response from people who are involved in decision-making—which isn’t always easy. B2B market research services from NewtonX are transforming the way companies find niche audiences for message testing. We’ll help you ask the right types of questions, from customer experience survey questions, brand perception survey questions, brand awareness survey questions, and more. Reach out to us today if you have any questions about brand awareness and how tracking it can help your business.
