It doesn’t have to be a Gamble!

Experimental Research

What if I told you, it’s not luck of the draw? Some of your common practices are Experimental Research and you probably don’t even know it. Let’s review together, so you can intentionally play your cards right. Hopefully, I can sweeten the deal and give you a few new tricks to add to your arsenal.

When you send out an email blast and test two different subject lines, that is an application of experimental research called A/B testing. If you aren’t currently doing this, get started with your next blast. Your software will let you know which headline had more success.

How about when you “treat” your best clients to a “preview” of a new service? This brilliant method of extracting feedback from a small sample before launching our ideas is referred to as a Test Market. This does not have to be a FREE service. You could upgrade their treatment with the new bells and whistles. Either way, your client feels special, and you confirm if you should launch a new treatment.

How do we decide what to charge? When I’m unsure about a price, I launch an INTRO SPECIAL, which includes the regular price. This allows me to gauge what my clients are willing to pay. Price studies are yet another application of experimental research.

Maybe your salon has a cafe or offers complimentary wine with treatments. Believe it or not, taste tests are yet again another form of experimental research.

All of the above should be common practices for you, which also means you may know that sometimes our tests don’t work. Let’s take the A/B test of our email blast subject line. Suppose A wins by 10%, but after analyzing the group of responders you realize A contained most of your employees, as well as, your family. If you removed their biased email openings, would A still be the winner?

While nothing is perfect, conjoint analysis was developed to help eliminate making decisions from false test findings. The concept is to present our clients with a few choices that contain different blends of the features we’re testing to determine what aspects are most important to them. Let’s use all of the above as a blueprint for our example.

We’re going to launch a new service and we’re not settled on the protocol, price, or even how to market it. Let’s select 150+ of our clients and see which option is favored.

The above test is going to give us an idea of what’s most important to our guests. Is a quality massage with bells and whistles worth top dollar. Does an intro deal allow me to skip add-ons? The results of the conjoint analysis will keep us from taking a gamble.