External validation means more than any other type of praise. If you ask your family, friends or extended network if your idea, work, hopes and dreams are good / exciting / worthwhile or brilliant they are likely to say agree. They are already invested in a relationship with you and that holds bias in whatever feedback they offer. My friends at Lighthouse London (a leading UX / UI Agency) often give new clients / prospects a book called ‘The Mum Test’ a book and mental model to look outside your immediate network for validation. The problem being; people are so nice. The best way to get feedback is from strangers.
Whenever I have a new value proposition or idea I socialise it with strangers at networking events or parties. I find this the fastest way to see how well formed the concept is, if I can get the idea to land, if it makes people excited and then their input flows, you gain immediate feedback on what’s working and what’s not.
At Say It Now we’ve brought a new category ‘Actionable Audio Ads’ to market as a small, independent startup and through thousands of conversations, huge hustling and some good luck we’ve managed to see early success which is building fast. Part of the way we ‘take the temperature’ of the industry, our own ‘mum test’ is by entering awards. In this way we get highly expert ‘strangers’ to evaluate our work against well established and best funded companies in the industry.
Imagine how it then feels when Say It Now wins not only ‘Best Use Of Audio’ but the ‘Grand Prix’ at The Wires, some of the most coveted awards in the digital advertising industry. It means a lot. I am so proud of the team. To be absolutely honest I was not sure the ‘winning’ campaign would actually work, a radio ad to get the listener to request information about a cruise holiday? The results were waaay better than expected (see case study here) and it obviously landed with the judges, to whom I’m very grateful for their support and vision. Have a look at how the campaign sounded below, excited to see what’s next, stay tuned…
Charles Cadbury 