What is DecisionLabs?
What better place to start than the beginning: what is DecisionLabs? DecisionLabs is a B2B research lab focused on human decision making. They explore this in three different environments:
- Behaviour research: Running simulations on how would-be B2B customers react to certain messages, content assets, presentations and conversations using behavioural outcome-based questions.
- Brain studies: “We are actually very unique in the B2B world in that we have our own brain study lab,” Tim states. “We use EEG, ECG, eye tracking, facial recognition and galvanic skin response to study buyers’ reactions to B2B content and sales communications.”
- Field trials: “This is where we test things under live fire: putting email messages, content assets, voicemails and social touches into cadences to see how real prospects and customers engage, take meetings and make purchase decisions,” Tim outlines.
During The Global ABM Conference, Tim explored three studies DecisionLabs recently completed in each of the labs:
- Best email messaging appeals: Emotional vs. rational.
- Best email format: Traditional text vs. personal video.
- Best email content offer: Static vs. interactive.
1. Best email messaging appeals: Emotional vs. rational
DecisionLabs looked into how you should approach early-stage emails in their behavioural lab: should you use rational or emotional language? Include numbers or avoid them? In short, how do you create an email that makes someone want to take an appointment with your salesperson?
DecisionLabs analysed the reactions of no less than 500 would-be B2B buyers to the following email formats:
- Unquantified emotional.
- Quantified emotional.
- Quantified rational.
- Quantified emotional with a before and after contrast.
- Quantified rational with contrast.
After reading one of the emails, participants are asked a series of behavioural questions and the results are compared between the test conditions. So, which email format comes out on top?
When asked if the email caused you to believe that you have a meaningful, large enough problem, the winner is clear: quantified emotional emails with a before and after contrast.
Despite the fact that “most people use shorter emails with quantifiable data explained in clear, specific, business-like language,” there is a 23% difference between the short, quantified rational format and quantified emotional with contrast.
“It’s a big deal to see that there’s an advantage to saying more. Shorter is not necessarily better,” Tim states. Although unquantified emotional and quantified emotional emails were shorter and still performed well, Tim maintains that this is due to the emotional messaging outperforming their rational counterparts.
These results are consistent as we move into the question of “how urgent is it to fix your problem.” Once more, quantified emotional emails with contrast dominates, closely followed by quantified emotional. As Tim outlines, “without the emotional appeal, the results fall really flat.”
“When people say you need to use quantified, rational language because B2B people are ‘serious and logical thinkers,’ that’s just personal opinion. There’s no data to support it,” Tim maintains, highlighting a clear link between the email format most often used, and the one that’s the least successful.
It comes as no surprise that these results hold true during the third question, with a 11.1% gap between the quantified emotional with contrast email and the quantified rational email.
“Based on these findings,” Tim asserts, “you can clearly see that B2B buyers in early-stage emails respond best to emotional quantified emails with contrast. And contrary to popular belief people will actually spend time on longer content if it’s good.”
2. Best email format: Traditional text vs. personal video
Conducted in the brain lab, DecisionLabs explored the question of whether personalised video emails proved more effective than traditional text. This wasn’t a generic marketing video, Tim stresses, but a human on camera telling a story using supporting visuals, such as a whiteboard.
Candidates’ brain reactions were examined as they progressed through an artificial inbox: one group’s inbox had solely text emails, whereas the other group contained a personalised video email somewhere in the middle of the list. “Neuroscience shows the honest signals going on inside us that we can’t control,” Tim reminds us. Providing subconscious, reliable data as opposed to opinions.
In a post-pandemic world where text-based communications dominates, it hardly comes as a surprise that candidates paid more attention to the video than text email. There is less fatigue associated with watching a video, and motivation levels were higher during the video email.
Reinforcing the value of these findings is that the script in the video was exactly the same as the text in the email, allowing us to conclude that the video made a difference in the impact of the content.
The eye tracking portion of the study validated that you can’t expect your audience to read your entire email: people tend to skim, missing key points. Video format “controls people’s focus and guides them to look at what you want them to see when you want them to see it.”
When valence (pleasurable experience) and arousal (active engagement) levels were measured, text only emails had higher arousal and lower valence levels than video email.
When taken together this means the text emails (low valence/high arousal) stirred feelings more related to anger. And the personal video (high valence/low arousal) created reactions that look more like happiness.
The video acted like a “happy pill,” Tim states. When participants returned to their emails after viewing the test email or video, those who watched the video returned to the rest of their inbox more positive and engaged.
So, how do you incorporate this into your ABM campaign? Tim suggests sprinkling personalised video into your touch patterns to make these emails stand out and take advantage of these positive outcomes.
3. Best email content offer: Static vs. interactive
It seems as if interactive, digital content has dominated post-pandemic marketing spheres with 83% of marketers believing that this is the type of content they ought to be offering. Although often hailed as the be-all and end-all, is interactive content worth the time and cost to create?
DecisionLabs put this to the test with a field trial. Working with a randomised database of “dormant hand raisers” who attended previous webinars (those who didn’t download content or respond to SDR calls), DecisionLabs aimed to ‘rewarm’ this hard-to-reach audience with a new content offer.
They did this by dividing the database into two test conditions. One was offered a static ebook as a content offer. The other was offered an interactive assessment they could take. The content in the promotional emails and the content in the two content offers was identical. The only difference was the “experience” offered by the content asset – static vs. interactive.
In the DecisionLabs test, an ABM cadence was run to get people to re-raise their hand again to get the content. Those “handraisers” were then put into a nurture cadence to set a sales appointment to determine which audience was the most responsive.
The e-book generated 19% more engagement than the interactive assessment. Tim states that you could argue that despite these results, the more ‘serious buyer’ is one that’s willing to interrogate themselves through the interactive assessment, thus potentially complicating results.
However, this line was challenged as SDRs reached out to all of the hand raisers.
Of those who downloaded the e-book, the number of people who replied to emails agreeing to have further discussions was 61% higher than those who took the interactive assessment. This was the same when comparing those who accepted phone calls from the SDRs, with the e-book coming in with a 58% higher answer rate.
“This blew our hypothesis that the interactive assessment people were more invested and serious,” Tim outlines. He suggests that the interactive assessment potentially validated users, “convincing people that they didn’t have a problem when the goal was to show them that they did.”
Juxtaposing this, Tim offers the view that the e-book leads candidates to ‘investigate’ their areas of concern – an argument supported by the fact that those who downloaded the e-book took a sales meeting at a rate 77% higher than the interactive assessment. “Perhaps they thought, ‘what value is there in a meeting where I’ve just answered those qualifying questions myself and know what my results are,’” Tim states.
The last hypothesis was that maybe the interactive assessment would perform better when it came to SALs and pipeline. But, again, e-book responders generated an SAL rate 133% higher than those who took the interactive assessment and an SAL-to-pipeline conversion rate 100% higher than the interactive assessment users.
The e-book outperformed its interactive counterpart in every measure in a real-world, controlled field trial. “You might want to reconsider the pressure to do something interactive,” Tim said. “The data shows that maybe it’s not worth the effort and may even backfire on you.”
In his conclusion to the presentation on these three studies, Tim highlighted that in each case the results inverted our understanding of “conventional wisdom.” His key takeaways are:
- B2B audiences respond to emotional better than rational appeals and will engage longer content not shorter if it done well.
- B2B audiences are more engaged and seem to enjoy personalized video emails versus traditional business text email.
- B2B audiences are not as enthralled with interactive quiz and assessment content as we might think from our own social media experiences.
