Suzanne and her team tested Options $2$ vs$.3$ with a sample of customers who just purchased Xfinity. These customers received the normal $90$ day communications. In addition, one$-$half of the test sample received an email with an actual promotional offer to sign up for Xfinity mobile service and receive a $$500$ Visa gift card. The other half received an "educational" email about the advantages of the service that didn't include an actual offer $($but did include a follow$-$up offer a few months later$).$

Option #$3$ carried the day: Customers seemed to pay more attention to the content when the message was positioned as educational rather than when it was clearly a sales pitch. Figure $1.$x shows the two messages that customers received.

The data clearly showed that Option #$3$ was more effective: Customers were likely to open the email, and more likely to click through to the ad$.$ Most importantly, they were more likely to actually upgrade their service. In the world