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Every business owner is looking for
that golden marketing strategy that works like magic to grow their business.
Well, I hope you’re sitting down because I am going to tell you the most
powerful marketing strategy you will ever learn. The strategy is called split
testing.
“What the heck is split testing”, you ask? Split testing is the process of
comparing the results (sales, leads, etc.) of one marketing piece against
another marketing piece to see which generates the most sales. Clear as mud,
right? To make split testing easier to understand, I will show you an example of
split testing using direct mail sales letters.
You write 2 sales letters to sell the sales training course you are offering.
Both sales letters are identical except for one thing – they each have a
different headline. Sales letter “A” has the headline, “How to easily double
your sales in 180 days with this little known marketing strategy” and sales
letter “B” has the headline, “Learn the marketing secret twelve small businesses
recently used to increase sales by over 173% in less than 180 days.” Then, you
send letter “A” to 2,000 prospects and letter B to 2,000 prospects. You then
track which sales letter produces the most leads and sales. The results tell you
which sales letter is the stronger sales tool – letter “A” or letter “B”.
“But how do you track which sales letter is producing the most leads/sales” you
ask? Easy. You add a unique key code to each letter campaign so you can track
it. So, for letter campaign “A” you use the key code 111 at the bottom of each
letter and for letter campaign “B” you use the key code of 222 at the bottom of
each letter. When a customer calls (or places an order), you simply ask them for
the key code in their sales letter. Then you track these codes in a spread sheet
so you know which letter produced the lead and the sale. After a few weeks to a
month, you will know which sales letter is producing the most sales and you can
feel confident sending the stronger sales letter to the rest of your prospects.
“What happens if both sales letters bomb and produce poor results?” Then you
write two more sales letters and test them against each other on a small scale
(sales letter “C” versus “D”). Testing like this is far less expensive than
sending a single, untested sales letter to tens of thousands or even hundreds of
thousands of prospects. By split testing different messages on a small scale,
you can test the pulling power of a sales message without breaking your bank.
And, you learn which sales message is the one that generates sales like crazy
and will grow your business. If you want to be successful in marketing, always
test on a small scale and once you find a winning message, then market on a
large scale. NEVER market on a large scale with an untested sales message or you
will almost certainly lose a ton of money.
While testing the headline is one of the most important things you can test when
testing marketing pieces against one another, you can also test things like
price, ($99 per widget in letter “A” and $79 per widget in letter “B”), coupon
versus no coupon, promotional specials (get 3 widgets for $197 versus get 4
widgets for $249). But the key is to only test one thing at a time. Do not test
a headline in one letter against a price in another letter because you cannot
compare the two. Only test a headline against a headline and a price against a
price.
“This sounds like a lot of work” you say. “Explain to me again why is split
testing so important because I still don’t get it?” First of all, you are right.
Split testing is a lot of work. However, the reason it is so important and worth
all the work is that it is the one market tool that allows you to significantly
increase your marketing return on investment while greatly reducing your
financial risk. Split testing allows you to determine which sales message
(campaign) is producing a profitable result while eliminating marketing
campaigns that are not producing profitable results. Using the sales letter
example above, let’s say that the results of your split test of letter “A”
versus letter “B” showed that letter “B” produced 34% more leads than sales
letter “A”? Wouldn’t you rather use letter “B” for marketing to the rest of your
clients instead of letter “A”? Of course! That is why you do split testing. You
do it to find out what sales message is going to generate the most sales and
make you the most money! So, split test your way to success.
Peter Geisheker is the CEO of
The Geisheker Group
Marketing Company. Peter specializes in developing and implementing
strategic marketing programs for small businesses.
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