The Secret of Testing -- How To Increase Cash Flow Without Risk
The Secret of Testing -- How To Increase Cash Flow Without Risk
There is no other action you can take that will produce a higher
yield on your marketing investment then testing. You need to
test everything that you do.
Test every sig file, classified ad, sales letter. Test mediums,
ezines ads, banner ads, search engines, newsgroups. Test each
sub set of that medium, an individual ezine, a certain banner
exchange, a certain opt-in email list, etc.
Getting results is good, but getting excellent results is even
better. Many marketers make the mistake of settling for OK
results when with just a little more tinkering to a headline or
other variable you can increase yield tenfold.
ALWAYS test your marketing before committing to any large outlay
of capital. It's much better to lose small than to lose big.
When you lose small you live to fight another day. But, when
just one big ad bombs you could be wiped out with no other
options left but to give up.
The maxim for testing is to test small, then roll out big only
after you've identified what works. With a relatively small
budget you can test till you find the winning combination of a
good ad and a good medium/list. Once you've cracked this code
you can proceed with a larger campaign with a higher level of
confidence that you'll succeed. Then just do more of what works
to increase your results.
There are 3 principles involved with testing...
1. Finding the ad copy that pulls the highest yield. 2. Finding
the medium or type of advertising that works. 3. Finding the
list or publications that work
First you need to develop an ad that works. Let's take a
classified ad as an example. You want to write 10 different ads.
Then select the two you think are the best. Then place the ads
in an ezine or other medium. It's important to keep as many
variables the same as you can. This means the two ads should
appear in the same ezine and in the same issue. This is the only
way to get an accurate measurement of the pulling power of and
ad.
This is sometimes know as an A/B split test. Everything is the
same except the ad copy of the ad. In ezine advertising the only
variable you may not have control over and may skew results is
the placement of the ad. Depending where the ad is placed in the
publication can determine the pulling power, whether on top vs.
on the bottom, etc. can make a difference in an ads
effectiveness. You usually don't have control over this. However
you can usually get a good feel for what ad pulled the best
despite the placement.
POWER TIP: How do you know what ad pulled the best? Well, in the
offline world you could run the response through different 800
numbers. Or use different Suite numbers, etc. In the online
world there are much better ways to do this, and they are
totally automated. Every click that takes place on the Internet
can be recorded and calculated. This means you can tell exactly
how many people clicked on your ad. The secret is in the web
address you put in your ad. You can find a service program that
will let you set up as many ads as you want to track. You
basically create a tracking event by selecting a name of the
event. Then the Ad Tracker will create a special web address to
use in your ads. When someone clicks on this address it is
logged by the Ad Tracker and is added to the stats that you can
view in real time. You'll want to create a different address for
each ad that you run. This will clearly identify which ad pulled
the best.
This ad will become known as your control ad. You'll do future
testing of other ads against this one. When you've identified an
ad that pulls better than your control replace your old ad with
this new one. Then do some more testing against this new
control. Testing is a never ending process. The relentless
marketer always makes more than those who give up early.
Once you know you have a winning ad you can continue the testing
process with various media. In the case of the classified ad
you'll want to test ezine ads vs. web site classifieds. Test
online classifieds vs. offline classifieds, etc.
POWER TIP: You can test mediums by using the same ad tracking
tool as before. This time you use a designation that reflects
the medium chosen. For example you could use, ng for newsgroups,
eb for your ebook, mb for message boards, etc. You'll want to
carry this technique one step farther by testing individual
publications and specific lists or groups. You could use nmz for
the "Network Marketing EZine," entng for the "Entrepreneurs
Newsgroup," mlmdl for the "MLM Discussion List" and so on. Keep
a written record of which code is for what ad, medium or
specific resource. Then analyze the stats on a regular basis.
You'll notice trends not readily available any way else. Some
ads will not pull as effectively as they use to.
Some media will not pull well at certain times of the year.
Knowing this information can save you a lot of money and help
you get the most out of every marketing dollar spent.
When you've determined what medium works the best, then test one
publication against another. In the offline world test daily
papers vs. weeklies vs. magazines. Over time you'll identify
what produces the highest yield for each marketing dollar spent.
This is the area where you'll want to spend more money and roll
out big.
You can also pyramid your profits to bigger type ads. You can go
from classifieds to a larger sponsorship ad for example. You
could go from a 1" ad to a 1/4 page ad. From a classified to a
banner ad with the same copy. Keep moving to larger size ads
until it there is no longer a cost benefit to it.
To figure the yield take the cost of an ad and divide it by the
number of leads or click throughs that you get. If an ad cost
$35 and you got 35 click throughs, you paid $1 per lead. If for
the same price you got 50 click throughs you paid .70 cents per
lead, a better yield. Now if you bought a bigger ad for let's
say $100 and received 125 click throughs you paid .80 per lead,
a lower yield. You'd be better off to use the smaller ad since
the yield was lower. That's why testing and measuring are so
important. Getting the maximum out of every dollar spent can
mean success or failure.
One last area of testing you'll want to keep an eye on is your
sales conversion. It's one thing to get a click through to your
site it's another to actually get a sale. The quality of the
lead is important. To get a better sales conversion getting a
qualified prospect is crucial. Some media will produce a lot of
clicks but few sales. This is true with ads as well. Keeping an
eye on both the click throughs and the number of sales is what
will determine the ultimate combination of medium and ad copy.
Cost per sale is the bottom line measurement you want to use for
all your marketing. What did it actually cost you to get that
sale?