Stop Guessing & Test Before You Invest
Most testing tells you what worked after you’ve already spent the money. Learn how Rapid Message Testing helps you pick the right message before launch.
We hear it all the time from communicators, marketers, and strategists:
“How do I know if my message will actually work before I spend the budget to put it out there?”
That’s the pain point we set out to solve in our recent webinar, Test Before You Invest: Using Message Testing to Amplify Your Impact.
Why We Hosted This Webinar
Many teams rely on A/B testing or post-launch analytics to figure out if their creative is effective. But by the time you get results, you’ve already spent money and time—and if the message flops, it’s too late.
We wanted to show folks that there’s another way: you can validate your messaging before you launch. That means less risk, more confidence, and better returns on campaign investments.
The Learning Objectives
At the start of the session, our team laid out three clear outcomes for attendees:
- Understand what makes a message persuasive.
- Learn how to test messages before launch.
- Walk away with practical strategies that can be applied immediately—even if you don’t use our platform right away.
From there, we grounded the conversation in the reality that changing minds is hard. We discussed the challenges of today’s attention economy: people see up to 10,000 ads a day, and the average attention span has dropped to just 47 seconds. In political advertising alone, $1.9 billion was spent on ads in the last presidential cycle.
It sounds bleak—but the science is clear: good storytelling works.
“Immersive narrative strategy—also known as just plain good storytelling—releases oxytocin in our brains, and people need to feel rewarded for stopping their scroll.”
We walked through the “Grim(m) Fairy Tales” that too often guide campaign messaging: “We’ve always done it this way,” “The loudest person in the room knows best,” or “We should just go with our gut.” These shortcuts waste money, miss opportunities, and ignore what’s at stake: policy outcomes, funding, and public trust.
“Moderated messaging isn’t the same as moderated policy. You can stay true to your values while adjusting how you talk about them.”
We can instead draw on proven persuasion techniques like moral reframing, which helps communicators speak to the values that matter most to their audience. As our team put it:
“People make decisions based on values, emotions, and identity—not just facts. That’s why we need to test before we invest.”
What We Heard From You
Attendees shared that they often feel stuck trying to balance speed and rigor. They know they need evidence, but traditional research methods sometimes feel too slow, too expensive, or too complicated for day-to-day campaign work.
What You Heard From Us
During the session, we walked through how Grow Progress’s Rapid Message Tests combine the rigor of randomized controlled trials with the speed that communicators need. Instead of waiting weeks, you can know in days (sometimes even just 24 hours!) which messages persuade, which fall flat, and which backfire.
We showed how this approach is different from traditional A/B testing. A/B testing tells you what worked after launch. We help you decide what to launch in the first place.
“What’s great is that testing tells you not just which messages work, but which work with which audiences.”
And we highlighted real-world examples of teams who used this approach to sharpen their creative, save budget, and move the needle on the outcomes that matter most.
How You Can Apply This Now
If you’re planning a new campaign, here are three quick steps you can take right away:
Start with hypotheses, not hunches. Instead of guessing what might resonate, write down the competing ideas you want to test. Focus on outcomes and create a hypothesis backward from there.
Validate early. Run your messages through a Rapid Message Test before you invest in paid media or creative production.
Build on what’s proven. Explore Persuasion Library to see what’s already been tested—and adapt those insights to your audience.
Ready to Put This Into Practice?
Whether you’re a marketer wondering how to measure brand lift, or a campaign strategist deciding between competing narratives, you don’t have to fly blind. You can test before you invest. If you’re tired of guessing and ready to launch campaigns with confidence, we’d love to show you how message testing can work for your team. Grab some time with us here, and see how you can validate your creativity before you spend another dollar on launch.
