In every advertising campaign, there should be one ad that works harder than all the others. You can never be certain which ad that’s gonna be, but in a recent campaign for Statsig, a Series B startup that helps product developers, well, develop products, it’s this ad.
Product developers rely on Statsig feature flags, experimentation, and analytics to help them, test and launch new products and new features faster and more reliably than ever before. And with product developers, this particular message struck a nerve.
The communication strategy we used follows a model Division of Labor has executed with other Series B startups. Basically, technology companies with highly targeted products utilize a broad outdoor media buy combined with targeted digital and social media to build awareness with our key target while also building secondary awareness among a more general population. This drives website traffic and instigates consideration while the digital media and social channels (along with good salespeople) can drive trial. But it also seeds the ground for companies and decision-makers to be more receptive when their developers ask to bring Statsig into the company.
Of course, the key to all of this working is creating messaging that is unignorable and taps into some little bit of truth that makes product developers go: “Those people get me!” And for any copywriter working on technology brands in the Bay Area, finding those emotional triggers or insights or whatever you want to call them, is key.
“Don’t think, test.” Seemed like a compelling message. Because too often, people's beliefs or gut lead the feature development process. “I think this” or “I think that” can be tempered with “a test with our customers showed X”.
Of course, there are a lot of obvious ways to soften this message: “Don’t just think, test.” Or “Don’t guess, test.” But “Don’t think” was sure to get a reaction out of people. Who would ignore thinking? No one!
There were other messages in the Statsig advertising campaign, like, “A/B testing saves V/C money” and, “Features fail, experiments don’t.” But the product developer community hooked into “Don’t think, test.” And they proceeded to have a fascinating discussion about the premise, the reasoning behind it, the fact that selecting “don’t think” is antithetical and why it was or wasn’t a “good ad.”
And that’s what you want your ad campaign to do; get your target audience talking about you. People made great points, but it was centered around Statsig and the fact that Statsig sees feature testing as important and has feature flags as a main product offering. One conversation chain is especially interesting so I’ll include it HERE And to all who chimed in, thank you.
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The Freelance Copywriter San Francisco Blog is written and produced by Josh Denberg; a top freelance copywriter, creative director, content writer and founder of Ad Agency Division of Labor. Click HERE to discuss a project.