Do You Respond Well To Sex?
Recently I ran a little test. I was sending a mail out to a group who all knew me the same amount. No-one knew me more than others. Given that the list size was large enough and the conditions were similar, I thought it was a good opportunity to run a test about how well we respond to seeing pics of men or women flashed in front of us.
The content of the email was a series of training offers, aimed at a business audience. Two versions of the email were produced one with a zany man image and one with a zany woman image:
The list was split.
- Half of the list were given the ‘correct’ picture, ie. a woman was presented with a picture of a woman. A man was presented with a picture of a man.
- The other half of the list were shown the ‘wrong’ picture, ie. women were presented with the image of the man, and vice versa.
The results were interesting although what I expected:
The click rates were the most marked. Click rates were highest when you display the ‘correct’ picture to the sample. This proves the point that people like to see people online, and it would appear they like to see people like themselves. Women would appear to be a little more tolerant when shown an image not like them. Men don’t like it at all! Or else they simply detested the lady in the striped top in the sample.
The effect of the image wouldn’t have had such an impact on the open rates as not everyone uses preview panels, so many would open the email based on subject line and sender alone.
For anyone who clicked on this post based on title alone, sorry if you’re disappointed!