An Astromical Difference

The 6-by-9-inch carrier envelopes are dramatically different. One of the main sales letters salutes the reader as “Dear Fellow Sky Watcher” while the other uses “Dear Colleague,” and the lift letters also take dissimilar approaches. One of the main letters is set in Courier, the other in Times Roman. There are many other differences, as you’ll discover, but do they really add up to an astronomical 74.4% advantage? Yes.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute is a nonprofit membership organization in California dedicated to finding signs of life beyond Earth. It’s staffed and advised by current and former Nobel Prize winners and other eminent scientists in a wide variety of disciplines. It is privately funded, principally by philanthropist Paul Allen, with some federal support.

The assignment was to develop two new membership packages targeted at amateur stargazers, astronomers and other scientists. There was no pre-existing control. The carrier envelope text, main sales letter and lift letter in each 6-by-9-inch package were written by a different copywriter, one of whom wrote the brochure and order card and developed the offer. All graphic design and layout were created by the same designer. So the test elements were the carrier envelope, the main sales letter and the lift letter.

To make an informed guess about which side of this A/B split test won by 74.4%, click on each envelope to view the packages’ contents. Then click here for the results.