Kudos to MarketingExperiments for another great study on why we need to adopt testing.  Last year, they printed one of my favorite studies from all of last year, "Marketer's Intuition Tested".  This week, they put out a follow-up to that article with "Marketer’s Intuition Revisited".

This years study covers a broader array of topics, but these are very basic, yet telling, studies.  First, they poll a group of marketers on which of several options they tested performed better and then they show us the results.  Needless to say, the marketers were wrong... a lot. 

It always astounds me that we can be so wrong so often, and yet it is still hard to get organizations to adopt a testing culture.  Yes, testing is time comsuming, yes it takes effort, yes it is simply a pain in the hind end.  The list of excuses is long and well established.  Nevertheless, if you are serious about improving your program, sooner or later you will need to start validating the "intuitions" (or dare I say "best practices") your program is based on.

If you haven't read the latest case study from CareerBuilder.com, I encourage you to look at that too.  CareerBuilder.com's testing resulted in an 88% increase in conversion.  The kicker, we worked with them for 2 years prior to test our various "intuitions" and we could barely move the needle.  By testing several of the different program components that we had been working with for years into a single, well-designed test, we finally got the results we were looking for.

Testing works.  I promise that a well designed test will improve your program.  If you need help deciding what to test or where to start, drop me a line... I love this stuff!