It looks like I jumped to conclusions though.  Checking back again this morning after some time I noticed that actually, the simple copy out-performs the snazzy buy now copy.  This goes against conventional wisdom.

Of course google did tell me that the early results had a weak level of confidence but I was too impatient to wait for confirmation.  It is just by luck that I forgot to stop the experiment early on.

Ireland’s Largest Voiceover Directory

Attention:  First up get the attention of our audience.  I like to think of this as disarming the natural sales resistance. In other words, stand out enough to break out from the clutter.  Piehole’s brand is all about standing out and while it doesn’t always achieve this on the most favourable terms, the bright pink logo and slightly offensive term helps to get a little attention. I’ll chuck our weird and wonderful brand into the title to see if that helps grab attention.

Ireland’s Largest Voiceover Directory on Piehole

Interest:  While the sales resistance is still bamboozeled, we have a split second to get connect with whatever it is that the searcher is looking for.  This may well be a more logical proposition, something that would make you go “yeah, that makes sense”.  In our case we are hoping that our new ‘phone audition’ feature will help to do this for us.  I’d like the user to think, ‘eh, I could get my script read so I get a better idea how it is going to come out’.  The auditions are phoned in so they aren’t any good for commercial purposes but it does get the users ineracting with our talent.

Over 140 Irish Voiceovers: demo your script

Decision:  If A and I have gone well enough, the user will then make a decision in their own head as whether to click or not.  Having said that, I’m pretty convinced that people are not so much interested in making a good decision as not making a bad decision.  With that in mind I’m going to try and emphasise that there is ‘no risk’ involved in browsing our voices and getting an audition done.

Over 140 Irish Voiceovers:  FREE phone auditions

Action:  In our case we just want them to act.  You can make a decision in your mind to do something (like going for a run every day) but actually carrying it out is another story.  This is where the copy comes in.  NLP is pretty much the science of influencing people into action and while I’m not that well up on it, I know that command words work best.

Have your script auditioned for FREE by one of 140 Irish Voiceovers on PIEHOLE

Only one problem here, the title tag should be 65 characters and I’ve managed get to 79.

Audition your script for FREE by one of 140 Irish Voiceovers on PIEHOLE

I’m not sure whether the use of caps is kosher on not here.  I guess I’ll find out if we get dropped from the index.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

The second ‘new’ version was hardcore. There was more than a little controversy amongst the piehole team when I posted it up.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I really thought that the original – less salesy copy might do the trick. But …

the new variation seems to be beating the crap out of our clever copy.

UPDATE:  Caelen reminded me this morning of the importance of sample size when it comes to A/B testing.  I cheked back on my A/B test this morning and the results are not as clear cut as they first appeared.  You can see below that the ’scary’ copy is still working better but by a far lower margin.  I still haven’t collected enough data for a ‘high confidence’ result though.

80/20

The Pareto Principle isn’t wrong.  I’m assuming of course that the Irish site would be at 100% if it were fully off-site optimsed.