Last week we celebrated an anniversary. One year ago we launched the Monday Morning Resource Kit (MMR) as an experiment. We had all of these resources (videos, podcasts, white papers, marketing tools and blog posts) to help business owners take control of their marketing. MMR gave us a way to share those resources in an organized manner. 

The response has been very positive, with more than 30% of our audience opening the email each week. We get emails and phone calls complimenting the information. With all the positive feedback, we should be celebrating, right? We are happy people like the content. However, we noticed click-throughs were declining, even though our open rate remained high. This was a good indicator that people were interested in resources in general, but after a year of emails which looked essentially the same, they were getting a little bored with the content.

Rather than guess at what our readers wanted we decided to do a simple poll, with just one question. We asked, “Which resource do you get the most value from? ” We presented a list which included blog posts, videos, podcasts, white papers, and worksheets, and asked our readers to select only one item.

I assumed the workbooks would be the top choice. After all, the MMR was created to showcase our workbooks. I was wrong. Almost half (44%) of all the respondents said they found blog posts to be the most valuable. The workbooks were a distant third place (17%). 

 

Poll Results Graphic

This is interesting data but it becomes more valuable if we use the information to improve our communication. So the question is: where do we go from here? Well, any good scientist will tell you if you have enough data to form a hypothesis, the next step is to create an experiment to test that idea. That is exactly what we are going to do. 

We are going to create two different layouts for our Monday Morning Resource Email, changing up how we present information and what information we share. Then we are going to divide our email list in half so we can do some A/B Testing. We will keep the subject lines the same for both versions. We will then be able to evaluate the effectiveness of each campaign design. Which one does a better job of helping us achieve our goals of showcasing our business resources, getting more people to watch our videos, and downloading our tools.

We will look at both the click through rate (do people want the information we are sending) and email response (are they motivated enough to reach out). Which format will win out? I don’t have the slightest idea at this point.  I do know that will be an exciting process to watch. So, if you are curious to see the changes, and maybe be a part of the study, sign up to start receiving the Monday Morning Resource Kit and tell us what you think of the changes. 

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