This is a different take on “cause marketing” – similar to nonprofit marketing but more frequently employed by corporations that are for-profit, using a cause as a method of communicating. This marketing blogger decided to illustrate the importance of split testing a campaign (A/B testing). To begin with, the results were impressive: thes experiment improved the homless man’s earnings by over 100% over several days.

The blogger began his analysis of the homeless man’s campaign by noticing that his signage was in need of an overhaul. It was brown cardboard and largely featured “Hi, I’m Keith” with a number of other details too small to read in passing. In addition, the sign had no major call to action.

The next problem was that his cup (goal) of what he wanted people to do, was tucked between his sign between that and his leg and was not very inviting. This would be like putting an opt-in form or buy button on the footer of a lengthy website tucked in the corner blended with the website colors so you can barely see it.

So they began with a single change, marketing test A. They decided to at least make the homeless man’s goal a little more appealing, so we asked him to pick up the cup and try that for a while. This didn’t help his conversions much at all. Then the implemented marketing test B:

What we did here was quite different than what most homeless people would do. We focused on a different angle. We already have the “I’m homeless, help me” stigma attached to people that are sitting on the side of the street with a cup, so we don’t necessary need to make that a prominent part of our banner.

The next big difference is that we changed colors and went from cardboard to white to spark the interest of people walking by instead of automatically having negative associations that they have with cardboard and homeless people. The biggest difference, is that we are now introducing a bribe. We are basically saying “hey I’m homeless, help me, donate to help feed my family and pay my medical bills… but not only that, if you donate right now I’ll give you a free squirt of hand sanitizer”.

The blogger explains how this simple marketing concept can be used in any type of marketing campaign, even those that are trying to sell a product or service:

This can be applied to list building and all sorts of other aspects of Internet Marketing almost as is (don’t try to bribe people to complete offers though, just bribe them to get on your email list). One solid strategy of building a list is that you get people looking at your opt-in form then give them something for free aka a bribe to get them to pull the trigger and fill out the opt-in form for your email list.

A similar experiment was conducted by a copywriter in New York who developed a campaign to assist panhandlers with their message. He explains that:

I handed out these boarded messages at random to people who approached me for money, explaining why I thought their economy would be stimulated by my street signs.

Instead of the typical “Homeless and hungry, please help”, the messages state: “Please Support Pres. Obama’s Stimulus Plan, and begin right here … at the bottom … Thank you.’’ which were more effective in targeting the current thoughts and concerns of the potential clients. Once again, the measured results show that this proved to be an effective campaign. One of the panhandlers said “I think I made 10 or 20 dollars more yesterday than before. So maybe the sign is already working.’’