How my wife achieved a 1000% increase in clickthrough rate...

tomcam · 08-17-2009, 04:19 PM

...on her messageboard.

On the same day she made posts about 2 different topics. The titles were something like this (modified slightly to protect the innocent, and translated from Chinese):

POST 1: What my daughter says kids' main job is (500+ views)
Post #1 simply quoted our daughter, who said "It's the job of kids to hide as much as possible from their parents." About 10 people posted replies saying how funny they thought it was.

POST 2: Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR (50+ views)
Post #2 mentioned how we recently went to the Shakespeare fest in Ashland and had a great time. In the post my wife mentioned it was a dream come true for her. It was a long, heartfelt post because the subject meant a lot to her. About 6 people posted replies.

I was intrigued by this so I asked my wife to repost #2, but using a title along the lines of "This trip was a dream come true". The messageboard she likes best is extremely popular. Messages are posted at a dizzying rate, so both her posts were ancient history within 12 hours. I knew therefore that she could repost with a different title and it would neither cause any trouble nor disturb the test in any way. This time it got 500+ views, a 1000% increase in CTR. It yielded about a dozen comments.

My takeaways:
1. No one gives a hoot about Shakespeare anymore. Given the state of the art in education I can't blame them, though if they visit Ashland they might rethink. Seriously, though, the "conversion rate" (replies) merely doubled while the CTR increased tenfold. The "offer" itself, Shakespeare, is still not compelling.
2. Everyone now knows that one of my kids is a smartass. All right, not exactly a news flash.
3. Using timeworn copywriting techniques can still produce impressive results in a non IM setting.

08-17-2009, 04:19 PM	#1
tomcam Tom Campbell War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 381 Blog Entries: 12 Thanks: 278 Thanked 118 Times in 61 Posts Social Networking	How my wife achieved a 1000% increase in clickthrough rate... ...on her messageboard. On the same day she made posts about 2 different topics. The titles were something like this (modified slightly to protect the innocent, and translated from Chinese): POST 1: What my daughter says kids' main job is (500+ views) Post #1 simply quoted our daughter, who said "It's the job of kids to hide as much as possible from their parents." About 10 people posted replies saying how funny they thought it was. POST 2: Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR (50+ views) Post #2 mentioned how we recently went to the Shakespeare fest in Ashland and had a great time. In the post my wife mentioned it was a dream come true for her. It was a long, heartfelt post because the subject meant a lot to her. About 6 people posted replies. I was intrigued by this so I asked my wife to repost #2, but using a title along the lines of "This trip was a dream come true". The messageboard she likes best is extremely popular. Messages are posted at a dizzying rate, so both her posts were ancient history within 12 hours. I knew therefore that she could repost with a different title and it would neither cause any trouble nor disturb the test in any way. This time it got 500+ views, a 1000% increase in CTR. It yielded about a dozen comments. My takeaways: 1. No one gives a hoot about Shakespeare anymore. Given the state of the art in education I can't blame them, though if they visit Ashland they might rethink. Seriously, though, the "conversion rate" (replies) merely doubled while the CTR increased tenfold. The "offer" itself, Shakespeare, is still not compelling. 2. Everyone now knows that one of my kids is a smartass. All right, not exactly a news flash. 3. Using timeworn copywriting techniques can still produce impressive results in a non IM setting.