CXL - Best marketing has to be discovered

TODAY'S HOST

Ognjen Bošković, Growth Lead at CXL

Experimentation always had a crucial role in business, but it was mostly reserved for sophisticate orgs or random acts of individual contributors.

Moving on, we will see the rise of experimentation as a standard function of any business, big or small.

Here's why:

Knowledge exchange. 10 or 20 years ago, you could have had a 'secret' tactic nobody knew of - today you'll see competitors copying you in a matter of days. And then we'll all experience the law of shitty clickthroughs once everybody starts doing it.
Marketing teams need to achieve more with less. Budgets are cut, team are downsized, but your goals are still the same (or higher). You'll have to get smart. Smarter. You'll have to figure out new strategies and tactics faster, and on your own. There's no other way.
Customer behavior has changed. You could cold email your way to success 10 years ago. Today, customers are becoming more demanding, are more resistant to spammy tactics and expect more value from you. We all need to write new playbooks that are yet to be 'discovered'.

Sure, you can resort to 'best practices'. You can buy a course from a LinkedIn guru. You can listen to an industry leader's biased opinion (yes, the one inclined to preach lead gen because they sell a lead gen tool).

The truth is, best marketing has to be discovered.

Through trial and error. Through failure, because most things don't work.

But getting into the experimentation saddle puts you in a position where it's ok to fail, and that's how you 'stumble' upon the next big thing.

The ones that allow your business to grow 100% YoY. Not 3% landing page conversion rate increase.

Connect with Ognjen on LinkedIn.

YOUR WEEKLY DOSE OF MARKETING UPDATES

Table of contents:

1. Learn more, pay less

2. How to win with effective messaging
3. Use surveys to measure user satisfaction

4. What makes e-learning useful to you?

5. Get featured in Growth Notes
6. Building the greatest swipe file
7. Experimentation operating system tool stack

1. Learn more, pay less

Research shows studying in pairs makes you retain information better and longer, and provides you with a system of checks and balances.

Similarly, your bank account shows signs of relief when you split costs with someone. Say, a study buddy.

That’s why we’ve introduced a new 1+1 offer to the CXL subscription.

Here’s how it works:

Sign up for 1+1 CXL subscription offer
Invite one friend/colleague to your team account
You both get access to CXL content
Split the cost (equivalent to 50% discount for each)

This way, you don’t only get a discounted price for your ongoing marketing education, but also a study buddy with whom you’ll push each other into learning even more from the top 1% marketers on our platform.

Sign up for the 1+1 CXL subscription offer here.

2. Messaging strategy: how to win with effective messaging

Messaging determines 80% of your conversion rate. It helps you grab your target audience’s attention, hit their pain points and aspirations, and build interest in what you’re selling.

Yet, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building the perfect messaging strategy.

Too many brands try to follow old messaging frameworks and cast a wide net. Strong messaging, however, requires you to pinpoint your unique customer base and speak directly to them.

Effective messaging must be informed by your market, competitors, buyer intelligence, and user research. It takes time, steady research, testing, and optimization to craft the right message.

This guide will help you understand how to set yourself apart from the competition and deploy a messaging strategy that resonates.

Read the entire article.

3. Use surveys to measure user satisfaction

A good user experience leads to conversions. That’s why measuring user satisfaction is critical to understand your impact on your users, their opinions, and the actions you’d like them to do, like buying from you.

User surveys provide clarity on your positioning and competitive advantages, and allow you to quantify and communicate to stakeholders why UX matters.

Still, there are many metrics you can look at to measure satisfaction.

This playbook will help you choose the right ones, and create satisfaction surveys that pinpoint the problem areas where you need to work.

Get your playbook on how to use surveys to measure user satisfaction.

4. What makes e-learning useful to you?

Got 15 seconds? We'd love to get your feedback on how to improve our content.

Fill out the survey.

5. Get featured in Growth Notes

Your last real competitive advantage is constant innovation through experimentation at speed.

Submit your experimentation case studies and we will share them with our audience...

Newsletter (+120,000 readers)
Social media (+20,000 followers)

Case studies like the one you're about to submit help us educate more marketers on how to achieve speed through experimentation and win.

We will feature the best case studies across all of our channels and pay credits to you.

Submit your case study here.

6. Building the greatest swipe file

The ad of the week comes from Tray.io this time.

What's great about it:

Title is personalized to catch your attention. The ad refers to the company you're working at. In this case it's targeted for Bloomreach staff, but has variations for other companies.
The main benefit is well explained: you can automate your tech stack and focus on your main work.
The product is showcased visually, allowing you to see what the actual UI looks like.

Be more like Tray.io.

Join us in building the greatest swipe file there is. We will feature the best ads across our different channels with credits to you:

Newsletter (+120,000 readers)
Social media (+20,000 followers)

You can submit ads you've created but also the ones others did. We'll pay credits to you anyway for contributing to the marketing community.

Submit your ads here.

7. Experimentation operating system tool stack

The XOS Tool Stack helps you decide and choose between the most common software tools professional experimentation teams use to do their job.

This blueprint provides an overview of the main software categories you should be familiar with, as well as some examples of specific tools you can use in each category.

Some of its use cases are: