mastermind marketing system &testing Martin Lee on 07 Dec 2007 03:24 am
The Power of Testing
After last week’s experience at Harv Eker’s event, I’m back this week with a summary of Jay Abraham’s Mastermind Marketing System. This is part 7 of a 12-part series.
Testing is about putting to a vote one against the other.
When you comparatively test one approach of doing something against another, you will always find that one will outpull the other by a margin. Sometimes this margin can be as much as 21 times.
Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to test?
Test everything. Don’t rely on your intuition.
The first and most important thing you want to test is the headline.
80% of the impact or outcome is determined by the headline.
Anything that articulates the opening communication is a headline.
The purpose of the headline is to convey the benefit or the reason why the prospect would want to know more about your product or service.
In a sales presentation, it could be the opening one or two paragraphs of you speech.
In a retail store, it could be the way your sales people greet customers.
On a website, it could be the opening sentence that strikes people immediately.
And so on.
The next thing that you want to test is the pricing. Changing one number in the price could enhance the effects by 5 times.
If you randomly pick a price, you could be missing out on maximizing your revenue.
You can also test guarantees.
Test the call to action, etc.
If you test just 10 variables and each one can give you a 20% growth, you get a combined exponential growth.
Every organisation has within it a number of processes at work that combine to drive the business. Your first job is to isolate and identify which of the critical processes are, measure them, and then to constantly improve and enhance them.
on 07 Dec 2007 at 4:09 am 1.Paul said …
Hi Martin
Nice summary.
Testing and measuring is absolutely essential for anyone looking for the highest and best return on their marketing.
One additional point that I should emphasise is that for anyone who does test, try to do it in a controlled way.
You are trying to find the best combination that works for you.
So test one headline against another by just changing the headline. If you change anything else you invalidate the test. You won’t know whether it was the headline that is better or the other factor that mattered.
The headline is where I would start because if no one reads the advert of direct mail letter then everything else is wasted.
But I would also recommend that you try to get some feedback from recipients. It’s always a good idea to follow up anyway. You may find that the headline is fine but the copy and offer don’t work.
on 07 Dec 2007 at 2:31 pm 2.Des said …
Hi Martin,
Great blog as per and probably one of the most unused marketing tools out there is the testing.
I can’t believe that results can vary so much. Even a full stop or a comma can dramatically change ctr or sign up rates. This is probably more relevant with pay per click.
I also found that different coloured text, backrounds and pictures have a huge effect.
on 07 Dec 2007 at 2:33 pm 3.Des said …
If you’re marketing to a household regarding home improvements for example. Believe it or not “Pink” is the favourite, since women are normally the decesion makers. Corny I know, but it does work!
on 08 Dec 2007 at 5:38 pm 4.Marketing Magican said …
Hi Martin
Testing & measuring is effectively a free form of marketing and there are simply hundreds of things you can test.
I agree that only one factor should be tested at once or you will not know which factor made the difference BUT …… it is easy to test several variations of that single variant in real time.
Normally you might send out a small scale direct mailing or email with a version A and version B and choose the best performer for the larger mailing. But think laterally and you can see the possibilities of sending out versions A, B, C and D at the same time. I’ve done this with websites where a single picture on a landing page has been tested. Offer 25% of visitors picture A, 25% picture B and so on. Ideally do this randomly or otehr factors such as time of day may creep in. Done well it is possible to get results in as little as a few hours … although testing for a few days is preferred. The best performing picture can often provide a call top action that is >25% better than the worse performing. The difference represents free marketing and extra profit without extra outlay or effort.
Likewise use Google Adwords to test options. By writing a compelling ad that remaions the same in line one and two but with a variable line three you can discover which variable is most attractive. I recently did this with a client promoting a conference centre where the third line said they were “close to motorway” had “free parking on site”, “overlooked a nature reserve”, served “organic menu in restaurant” etc.
In a couple of days, and for less that �50, we were able to determine which benefit was most important and use this in our other campaigns. We’ve kept that campaign running and found the results we obtained in the first 24 hours are still valid months later.
If I can help anyone with testing and measuruing ideas please contact me via my website http://www.stefandrew.com or sign up to my free marketing tips newsletter where I give many more proven tips to help you grow your business.
Happy marketing
Stefan, thre Marketing Magician
on 10 Dec 2007 at 5:25 pm 5.Martin Lee said …
Hi Paul,
Testing one element at a time is a simple A-B split test. If the data size is big, more complex multivariate testing methods can be used that lets you test a few variables at a time.
Hi Stefan,
Talking about adwords, have you also tried google’s website optimizer? It’s a free tool by google that allows you to test multiple elements on your website at the same time.
It takes the statistical complexity out of the testing process.
Hi Des,
thanks for the tip. Yes, pink does seem to appeal to women. You still have to make sure your shade of pink is not too extreme. It could have different effect on conversions.
on 10 Dec 2007 at 10:58 pm 6.Stefan (Marketing Magician) Drew said …
Hi Martin
Yes I have used Google Optimiser. It is what I was referring to in my paragraph three. Th results can be stunning.
regards
Stefan
on 10 Dec 2007 at 11:58 pm 7.Martin Lee said …
Hi Stefan,
I see. Thanks for the clarification.
on 14 Dec 2007 at 12:52 am 8.Peter said …
Hi Martin,
This is very cool and useful blog. I like this article thanks to share it with us.
on 14 Dec 2007 at 1:11 am 9.Martin Lee said …
Hi Peter,
Welcome and thanks for visiting!
on 28 Jan 2008 at 12:17 pm 10.Lily said …
I agree that testing and measurement are very important. Intuition is a very weak base of decision making. By doing testing, we’ll get data that can be used as decision making strong base. The result will be much better than just rely on intuition.
on 29 Jan 2008 at 11:17 pm 11.Peter said …
The testing is very important thing in every work!