An Idea For Message Testing

Message testing is a type of market research that seeks to discover what messages you can market to have the greatest effect on buying habits. While there are several questions that message testing are supposed to answer, one of the most important components of a good message is its ability to last with the customer. If the customer forgets the message immediately, chances are it wasn't a good message.

We often see this idea in marketing advertising. The goal of a good jingle, for example, is not just to be a nice tune – it's to be a tune that the customer cannot get out of their head, sticking with them long after they hear the jingle in order to consistently remind them of the company. When you're developing your message, your goal is to find a message that will also continue to resonate.

That is why you may want to consider a form of testing that isn't widely used, but may help you decipher which messages stick with the person the longest.

Say your company has developed a list of 5 messages that it wants to test in order to see which is viewed most positively. It asks respondents to share what they think of each message, compare it against other messages, etc., until the company has found which message is viewed most positively and seen as the best choice for the business.

But you still need to find out which message is most memorable, and while you can ask your respondents to choose that message, you won't truly know if the message has stuck with them. That is why you may want to consider a follow up study with the same participants, and try various methods to see which one seemed to be the most memorable.

For example, you can create a list of 10 or 15 messages and ask the user to pick out which ones they were asked to provide their opinions about. Perhaps claim that you had 15 messages from the beginning but only tested 5 per customer. Once they select the 5, you can see how well those match up with the actual messages the person was asked about.

It's possible you'll find that one or two messages were more memorable than others, and if those were also the ones viewed most positively, chances are you have a good message. It's not a perfect solution, but it's one of many options you can try to make sure you're testing messages for memorability, not just for perceived memorability.