One of the problems with being in technical business to business marketing is that we don’t have the volume of website visitors, prospects or customers to be able to run statistical tests on changes. If advert A gets 10 clicks and 1 enquiry, is it better than advert B which gets 25 clicks and 2 enquiries? The numbers are too small to come to serious conclusions, which is why most marketing managers eventually convince themselves that gut feeling is the best approach.
Instead, why not look at the research done by mass market operators, and see if you can apply any of their results to your own activities? Here’s a typical example, documented in Gaming digital media persuasion strategy on Smart Insights. In this, the marketing team at Betfair were inspired by Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
This is something from which we can all learn. Most people are suspicious of offers and wary of change to some degree, and it can only be a good thing to reassure prospects from the start that you’re a safe bet. If you’ve been in business for a decent length of time, have lots of customers and can offer testimonials, make sure you ram home this advantage by telling people at the earliest possible opportunity – usually your website’s home page.