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SUMMARY:
Sometimes the “communication” part of marketing communications gets overlooked. Remember, communication is a two-way street…not just sending a message in one direction and hoping for a click/lead/sale, etc. That communication may take many forms. The companies we highlight in our latest article used social discussions, in-app surveys, and experimentation. To spark you next great idea, we bring you their case studies in this article – read on for examples from a pharma, SaaS, and sleep aid. |
This article was published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.
“The funnel does not occur in the channel; it occurs in the mind,” Flint McGlaughlin taught in Sales Funnel Strategy: 3 vital insights to help you plan and build an AI-calibrated SuperFunnel.
So, to improve your sales and marketing funnel, you need to get inside the customer’s mind. One way to do that, is by listening to and even using the customer’s own words. To spark your next great idea, today we bring you three stories from your peers.
First, a pharma company that engaged in social discussions with patients that had an often-stigmatized condition. Then, a SaaS that switched from email to in-app requests to understand why customers use its product. And finally, a sleep product that experimented with headlines based on customer reviews.
Urovant Sciences was a relatively new company with a newly approved drug when the COVID-19 global pandemic hit. That drug, GEMTESA, treats overactive bladder (OAB) – an often-stigmatized condition.
Because patients may suffer with the condition for years before they approach their doctor, patient education was an essential element in setting up a successful launch for GEMTESA.
So, the team launched a non-branded social website before launch – “Bladder Chatter” – aimed primarily at social discussion with patients about their struggle with OAB. The social website also provided information and resources.
Creative Sample #1: Social discussion website for new drug launch
“Urovant invested in media dollars aimed at raising awareness of this new platform through search, social, display and through an innovative partnership with SUNBASKET, a meal kit subscription service. Through the partnership with SUNBASKET, registrants could sign up and receive a complimentary ‘bladder friendly’ meal-kit,” said Walt Johnston, Executive Vice President, Commercial, Urovant Sciences, Inc.
There were 25,000 registrants against a goal of 15,000.
The launch creative – “More time here, less time there with GEMTESA” – positioned an aspirational reality where the patient could appreciate less time in the restroom and more time in the moment.
Creative Sample #2: Example of drug launch campaign’s visuals
The messaging was communicated through a targeted campaign of online video/over-the-top television, digital and social advertising, and in-office print. A full suite of patient and HCP (health care provider) materials – from a patient brochure and leave-behind, to a patient kit and bladder diary/symptom tracker – reinforced the imagery and core messaging for the campaign. This was further supported with a dedicated GEMTESA website.
For example, one element of the core message was “no significant impact on blood pressure”— no clinically significant changes to hypertension or increased blood pressure with GEMTESA versus a placebo – which was communicated with a “first and only” headline that focused on its exclusivity.
Creative Sample #3: Health care provider materials for a new drug launch
GEMTESA reached universal aided awareness of 92% and achieved 60% unaided awareness (hitting the team’s 60% goal), according to a March 2022 Specialty HCP ATU Tracking study (health care provider awareness trial and usage). In the same study, HCPs reported that GEMTESA sales representatives have equal share of voice in the specialty space – even with a much smaller sales force (47% GEMTESA share of voice versus 49% for branded competitor).
Prescribing exceeded launch expectations, ending the fiscal year 138% to goal. That equates to roughly 120,000 prescriptions written in the first 12 months of launch, with more than 52,000 patients treated.
“Awards aren’t business wins, but it was gratifying that Urovant earned PM360’s Trailblazer Product Launch of the Year award, and Modern Healthcare’s IMPACT award for Integrated Campaign of the Year for the GEMTESA launch,” Johnston said.
The team at Savio was trying to figure out why people signed up for it, so they could improve the SaaS product’s messaging and positioning. They wanted to use customers' words in their marketing copy.
So to figure out why people signed up – in their own words – they would send an email to new trial signups.
Creative Sample #4: Email to new trial signups from SaaS company
Response rate to this email was 8%.
“We got the idea that we could just get responses by asking people in-app,” said Kareem Mayan, Co-Founder, Savio. So now immediately after a user signs up for Savio, they see a screen that asks “What’s your main goal today?”
Creative Sample #5: In-app survey question for SaaS company
“It's mandatory to complete so we took our response rate from 8% to 100%,” Mayan said.
The team chose the first two options in the survey based on the main reasons users gave according to the data they collected from the previous follow-up email. But the last option ("Something else") allows the team to get interesting insights because customers can type in any response they want.
Creative Sample #6: In-app survey’s free fill form field
Increasing the feedback volume 12x has helped the team in a few ways.
They put all the responses they got to the email and the “Something else” in-app survey question into a spreadsheet/word cloud and were able to use literal customers' words in their headlines and throughout their website.
Creative Sample #7: Previous homepage for SaaS product
Creative Sample #8: New homepage for SaaS product, utilizing customer feedback
“We used ‘Build the right product’ in the H1 because that was the most common outcome people wanted out of using Savio. In the H2 ‘track feature requests’ and ‘data-driven product decisions’ came up more regularly than others,” Mayan said. These changes have resulted in 64% more website visitors who sign up for a trial.
Unexpected benefit #2 is that they realized they could send people down a different onboarding path depending on if they pick “Organize Feedback” or “Set up a public voting board.” Conversion from trial to paid is 15% higher because of this approach.
Also, they can reply to people who answer “Something else” and get into a conversation about what the user is trying to do. These conversations have yielded insights about new features and marketing approaches. Plus, people are more likely to convert (the team doesn’t track the impact of “engages in a conversation” on conversion yet, so this is anecdotal).
The first two case studies I found out in the big wide world of marketing. But this last case study I saw discussed in a meeting of the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa).
Zenko Health’s funnel consisted of an ad, which took prospects to a presell page, and then ultimately to a product page.
The headline on the original presell page was from a product review – “RELAX... FALL ASLEEP FASTER... STAY ASLEEP LONGER. WAKE UP FEELING REFRESHED.”
The theory was that people are more likely to trust it because it's not the company making a claim. “We're letting someone else do our bragging, as Flint [McGlaughlin] says,” explained Jack Trowbridge, Entrepreneur, Zenko Health.
Creative Sample #9: Original presell page for sleep product
The team felt the headline had elements of relaxation and all aspects of sleep quality to appeal to the largest amount of people. They use an implied-subject structure starting with a verb, so it appeals directly to the prospect and communicates value very fast. Here’s a look at the results for this pre-sell page:
The team felt that these results could be improved. “Looking at it with the MECLABS [conversion] index [heuristic] and thinking of qualitative answers for why it wasn't working as well as it could, I concluded that it didn't feel like a review or something a human would say. Therefore, people didn't believe it as much, and it actually created a negative psychological effect in the mind of the customer,” Trowbridge said.
Based on those insights, the team created the following hypothesis – If we can make the review headline feel more human-like and believable (by making it sound like something someone would actually say) while still keeping an imperative nature with an implied subject (directly talking to the customer), then it will increase the conversion rate because it feels more authentic and human-like.
“In the research cohort, I've further realized the importance of a hypothesis that can contain a ‘because’ factor to have the ability to learn something valuable from the test,” Trowbridge said.
The headline on the new presell page also used a review to let someone else do the bragging, and also sought to quickly communicate value in the first few words – "IMAGINE A NIGHT FREE OF STRESS AND ANXIETY — ONLY SOUND SLEEP!"
The headline uses the same implied-subject structure starting with a verb, so it appeals directly to the prospect and communicates value very fast.
The main difference is that the team used a review that felt more real, authentic, and human-like as opposed to a bunch of commands.
Creative Sample #10: New presell page for sleep product
The new page was able to drive:
The new pre-sell increased the conversion rate by 38% and earnings per click by 10%.
“The ability to understand a customer’s perception or the probability of how they will act using the MECLABS conversion index heuristic is one of the most powerful tools a marketer could be equated with,” Trowbridge said. “All the information from MECLABS is freely available for anyone to learn. The hard part is taking the time to learn it.”
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