“What do you mean you don’t know what people want? You’re the head of marketing?” The CEO screamed. Inside the fantasy playbooks of marketers, and the MBA playbooks, and the lean strategy course you hear the chant of TEST, TEST, TEST!

In the real world, telling people you are going to do a/b testing is a clear statement loud and clear that you have no idea what you are doing.

Or do you.

This takes positioning, and this is where the scientific method is the best pitch leading in.

“I don’t know what our customer’s right now want, feel, will respond to. But I know how to apply a scientific method to approach solving this problem.”

This response establishes you as a professional who knows how to learn and solve problems, through hypothesis, design thinking, then checking with numbers and then applying a series of tests to see what works and what doesn’t work.

Most marketers don’t move through this point of weakness, to then establish something even better on the other side. Proof.

It is a moment of weakness to say you don’t know and you will test. And you are going to brainstorm ideas, and talk to experts out side the company. BUt on the other side of that journey is the beautiful fruit plucked from the tree of experiments…….Proof.

Suddenly you start to see the results and you learn and you can take the tests back to the CEO/Executive team and deliver presentations on the user that explain behaviour, test that show what works and what doesn’t.

The testing takes time and dedication, and is best started slowly.

AB Testing Software

The following software can be used to assist in AB testing.