I work at a dental startup and market a digitally designed system for guided dental preparations. The technology is incredibly precise, allows for great control of preparations and shortens treatment time by 80%. Resulting restorations are highly aesthetic and have a minimal margin of error.
Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?
The technology truly is paradigm-shattering.
However, despite our efforts, the innovativeness of the product is acting as a deterrent for purchase instead of an enticer.
Our technology is unlike any other dental product out there. As such, it has been met with resistance from potential clients. After all, they do not know what to expect or what to compare it to.
Saying that learning to market the technology has been a challenge would be an understatement. However, we have recently started working with an A/B testing tool for our website. This has provided amazing insights that have taught us what type of messages, structure and call-to-actions may be best suited for our target market.
We are in the midst of creating a brand-new website for our product and said insights have been invaluable.
The following are my top take-aways from my first weeks using A/B testing.
1) Start with observations:
The first thing I did when determining my A/B test was go through our website and determine what could change. I encountered multiple potential changes and wrote them all down. I also gave each observation an importance score based on what I thought we needed to prioritize when selecting what to test.
2) Define your hypothesis:
I used my observations to create multiple hypothesis for potential changes. The hypothesis mentioned what I expected would happen after I altered certain elements. I then selected what I would test first based on the importance score I had awarded each element.
3) Define and make changes:
Once I created my hypothesis, I started making the changes on the website. The A/B testing platform allowed me to create different variables that I could test simultaneously. In addition, I was able to define my test market based on behavior, location and more.
I noticed that it is very easy to get carried away in this stage. I wanted to test everything at once! I decided that it would be best to start slowly and isolate certain variables that would be most likely to alter consumer behavior.
I also defined the key metrics that I would use to define the winning variables. In my case, I opted to measure clicks.
4) Measure!
Once changes were made, I had to be patient. The platform advisor recommended that we allow each A/B test to run for at least one week. In addition, he mentioned that we needed at least 1,500 visitors and 25 conversions to produce statistically significant results.
I am excited to continue testing and learning from the A/B testing platform. I am hopeful that the tests will continue to produce helpful insights that will improve the marketing message for my business.