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Actual for You - Notes for Newbies - Part Fourteen - Testing
Analyzing consumer behavior is perceived as cornerstone of a successful marketing strategy (Papers4you.com, 2006). Consumer behavior is ‘ the mental and emotional processes and the observable behavior of consumers during searching purchasing and post consumption of a product and service(Batra & Kazmi, 2004) . Similarly Engel (et al, 1990) refers consumer behavior as the action and decision process of people who purchase goods and services for personal consumption.Now if these defining criteria are closely observed, it is evident that analyzing consumer’s decision making process is the foundation of entire notion of consumer behaviorThere are four different views related to consumer decision making process and behavior (Schif
Here is a big and very important problem with testing. If testing is going to give you any useful information at all, you can only test one thing at a time. If you change the font and the colour of your headline, and your sales increase by 5%, which change was responsible? You don’t know. You must be careful to change only one thing at a time.
Even then, you still have questions to ask. Suppose you run the same classified ad for several weeks with no changes. Some people in the business will tell you sales will increase over time simply because more readers will respond to your ad having seen it several times. So, you decide to change your headline after it has been running for three weeks and sales increase by 7% in the fourth week. Is the new headline responsible or that the ad h
Teleseminars are a great way to prospect, sell, stay in touch with current customers and clients, build your list, and so much more. Here are just some of the ways you can use teleseminars to boost your business!Introduce a new product or service:Product launches are one of the most common ways to use teleseminars. This is a great way to explain all about what your product can do and how it can help your customers. This is especially useful for informational products, because the teleseminar can be mostly high impact content, with only a little bit of selling. There is no way in one hour to tell everything in a book, or even an ebook, so you can give as much as possible to the audience and still leave them wanting mor
Today we want to talk about testing. Testing is the process you use to try to figure out which headline or which price is the best for a product you are selling.
Testing
Testing is a messy process at best (I’ll explain why in a bit of detail below). It is open-ended in that you can test forever and never really come to the end. The big players in direct marketing, indeed in all marketing, test all the time. The really big players are those who have turned testing into an art form.
When you test you simply, for example, produce the same sales letter with two different headlines. You run one for perhaps one week and the other for the same length of time, then compare results. Which one produced the greater number of sales or the greater profits (it’s a bit more complicated, as we shall see below, but we have to start somewhere)?
Here are some things the gurus test:
- Headlines
- wording and phrasing
- fonts – type faces
- font colours
- quotation marks
- alignment – left-centre-right
- justification
- Images
- number of images
- choices of subjects
- captions
- locations vis-?-vis text
- Body of text
- wording and phrasing
- fonts
- font colours
- alignment
- justification
- paragraph structures
- paragraph sizes - numbers of lines
- breaks between paragraphs
- punctuation
- questions
- Sub-headlines
- number and location
- wording and phrasing
- fonts - type faces
- font colours
- quotation marks
- alignment
- justification
- Background and borders
- colours
- images
- thicknesses and styles of borders
- with or without borders
- Testimonials
- numbers of testimonials
- locations
- backgrounds and borders
- Signature and signature colour
- Postscripts
- numbers of postscripts
- subjects
- Bonus offers
- numbers of bonus offers
- pricing
- time limits for extra bonuses
- Product price
- price
- locations of price within body of letter
- time limits for discounts
- number of times price is stated
- Opportunities to order
- location of order buttons or links
- wording – ‘Reserve yours NOW!’ or ‘To book your DVD set click here NOW!’ for example
- numbers of order buttons
- Cover letters – style and content
- ‘Lift letters’ – style and content
- Order envelopes - Freepost or stamped
- Colour and texture of sales letter paper
We could probably add at least this number to our list, but this will do for now. My point is that every bit of the appearance, tone and content of sales letters and web pages is tested continually by the pros in direct marketing.
And probably the most fascinating aspect of testing is that much of it is not obvious. Why is it that a blue signature results in more sales than a black signature? Why is it that a headline with quotation marks around it pulls better than one without? Why is it that a sales letter with a PS, PPS and PPPS tests better than one with only a PS and PPS?
Here is a big and very important problem with testing. If testing is going to give you any useful information at all, you can only test one thing at a time. If you change the font and the colour of your headline, and your sales increase by 5%, which change was responsible? You don’t know. You must be careful to change only one thing at a time.
Even then, you still have questions to ask. Suppose you run the same classified ad for several weeks with no changes. Some people in the business will tell you sales will increase over time simply because more readers will respond to your ad having seen it several times. So, you decide to change your headline after it has been running for three weeks and sales increase by 7% in the fourth week. Is the new headline responsible or that the ad ha
Have you ever lost your way in a mess of papers, photos, and stickers? Then instead of fuming and fretting get some Zipper Binders. With Zipper Binders you don’t need to browse through heaps of material as these Zipper Binders are fitted with various pockets to make storage easier. Moreover they are translucent enough so that the moment you open them you know the items that you have stored.There is a whole range of Zipper Binders to choose from, so you can choose the one that suits your purpose. There are some that are well endowed with storage space. The pages for the Zipper Binders are either made of heavy plastic or translucent vinyl, with an accordion pullout file for the protection of pages. At times they are fitted with cut
- wording and phrasing
- fonts – type faces
- font colours
- quotation marks
- alignment – left-centre-right
- justification
- Images
- number of images
- choices of subjects
- captions
- locations vis-?-vis text
- Body of text
- wording and phrasing
- fonts
- font colours
- alignment
- justification
- paragraph structures
- paragraph sizes - numbers of lines
- breaks between paragraphs
- punctuation
- questions
- Sub-headlines
- number and location
- wording and phrasing
- fonts - type faces
- font colours
- quotation marks
- alignment
- justification
- Background and borders
- colours
- images
- thicknesses and styles of borders
- with or without borders
- Testimonials
- numbers of testimonials
- locations
- backgrounds and borders
- Signature and signature colour
- Postscripts
- numbers of postscripts
- subjects
- Bonus offers
- numbers of bonus offers
- pricing
- time limits for extra bonuses
- Product price
- price
- locations of price within body of letter
- time limits for discounts
- number of times price is stated
- Opportunities to order
- location of order buttons or links
- wording – ‘Reserve yours NOW!’ or ‘To book your DVD set click here NOW!’ for example
- numbers of order buttons
- Cover letters – style and content
- ‘Lift letters’ – style and content
- Order envelopes - Freepost or stamped
- Colour and texture of sales letter paper
We could probably add at least this number to our list, but this will do for now. My point is that every bit of the appearance, tone and content of sales letters and web pages is tested continually by the pros in direct marketing.
And probably the most fascinating aspect of testing is that much of it is not obvious. Why is it that a blue signature results in more sales than a black signature? Why is it that a headline with quotation marks around it pulls better than one without? Why is it that a sales letter with a PS, PPS and PPPS tests better than one with only a PS and PPS?
Here is a big and very important problem with testing. If testing is going to give you any useful information at all, you can only test one thing at a time. If you change the font and the colour of your headline, and your sales increase by 5%, which change was responsible? You don’t know. You must be careful to change only one thing at a time.
Even then, you still have questions to ask. Suppose you run the same classified ad for several weeks with no changes. Some people in the business will tell you sales will increase over time simply because more readers will respond to your ad having seen it several times. So, you decide to change your headline after it has been running for three weeks and sales increase by 7% in the fourth week. Is the new headline responsible or that the ad h
You've seen it before: people who make a hullabaloo about following their dreams and then end up broke, busted and disgusted. If this has made you put your own dreams on hold, here are 5 reasons why most people fail and how to avoid making those same mistakes as you strive to make a living doing what you love.1.They don't carve out their own niche- Many aspiring singers fail for instance, because they're too busy trying to become the next Kelly Clarkson, James Brown or Michael Jackson. Same thing goes for wannabe models, writers and business people. Does the world really need what it already has? Stop trying to clone somebody else, learn from successful people by all means but project your uniqueness too. On a sheet of paper list y
- quotation marks
- alignment
- justification
- Background and borders
- colours
- images
- thicknesses and styles of borders
- with or without borders
- Testimonials
- numbers of testimonials
- locations
- backgrounds and borders
- Signature and signature colour
- Postscripts
- numbers of postscripts
- subjects
- Bonus offers
- numbers of bonus offers
- pricing
- time limits for extra bonuses
- Product price
- price
- locations of price within body of letter
- time limits for discounts
- number of times price is stated
- Opportunities to order
- location of order buttons or links
- wording – ‘Reserve yours NOW!’ or ‘To book your DVD set click here NOW!’ for example
- numbers of order buttons
- Cover letters – style and content
- ‘Lift letters’ – style and content
- Order envelopes - Freepost or stamped
- Colour and texture of sales letter paper
We could probably add at least this number to our list, but this will do for now. My point is that every bit of the appearance, tone and content of sales letters and web pages is tested continually by the pros in direct marketing.
And probably the most fascinating aspect of testing is that much of it is not obvious. Why is it that a blue signature results in more sales than a black signature? Why is it that a headline with quotation marks around it pulls better than one without? Why is it that a sales letter with a PS, PPS and PPPS tests better than one with only a PS and PPS?
Here is a big and very important problem with testing. If testing is going to give you any useful information at all, you can only test one thing at a time. If you change the font and the colour of your headline, and your sales increase by 5%, which change was responsible? You don’t know. You must be careful to change only one thing at a time.
Even then, you still have questions to ask. Suppose you run the same classified ad for several weeks with no changes. Some people in the business will tell you sales will increase over time simply because more readers will respond to your ad having seen it several times. So, you decide to change your headline after it has been running for three weeks and sales increase by 7% in the fourth week. Is the new headline responsible or that the ad h
In Parts 1 and 2 of Avoiding the common mistakes when starting up in the Nursery World we looked the importance of market research and sorting out your finances by using experts like accountants, financial advisors and nursery insurance brokers. We also looked at nursery business plans and importance of knowing your customers.In this final article we will provide you with some top tips to make sure the opening and long term prospects for your new nursery go to plan:Rules and regulations – with nurseries being regulated by OFSTED and with any breach of rules likely to be frowned upon by them and your potential customers make sure you know your stuff in relation to child ratios, staffing qualifications and the new fire risk as
- Opportunities to order
- location of order buttons or links
- wording – ‘Reserve yours NOW!’ or ‘To book your DVD set click here NOW!’ for example
- numbers of order buttons
- Cover letters – style and content
- ‘Lift letters’ – style and content
- Order envelopes - Freepost or stamped
- Colour and texture of sales letter paper
We could probably add at least this number to our list, but this will do for now. My point is that every bit of the appearance, tone and content of sales letters and web pages is tested continually by the pros in direct marketing.
And probably the most fascinating aspect of testing is that much of it is not obvious. Why is it that a blue signature results in more sales than a black signature? Why is it that a headline with quotation marks around it pulls better than one without? Why is it that a sales letter with a PS, PPS and PPPS tests better than one with only a PS and PPS?
Here is a big and very important problem with testing. If testing is going to give you any useful information at all, you can only test one thing at a time. If you change the font and the colour of your headline, and your sales increase by 5%, which change was responsible? You don’t know. You must be careful to change only one thing at a time.
Even then, you still have questions to ask. Suppose you run the same classified ad for several weeks with no changes. Some people in the business will tell you sales will increase over time simply because more readers will respond to your ad having seen it several times. So, you decide to change your headline after it has been running for three weeks and sales increase by 7% in the fourth week. Is the new headline responsible or that the ad h
Rewarding Your Employee For Their Great ServicesHow to reward your employee by using smart techniques? If you are like me, keeping the reward in mind will make it easier to stay motivated. That is the purpose of providing rewards to keep the interest level and motivation of your workers as a manager. First, I want to point out to you why setting goals is important before you go too far. Learn as manager how to set very well-defined goals helps your employees to do their best. Be sure that they are meaningful and justified deadlines to get the project finished within time. You should recognize that no one is perfect and you as a supervisor are far from perfect. You are the leader of the pack and you must always be ready to offer adv
Here is a big and very important problem with testing. If testing is going to give you any useful information at all, you can only test one thing at a time. If you change the font and the colour of your headline, and your sales increase by 5%, which change was responsible? You don’t know. You must be careful to change only one thing at a time.
Even then, you still have questions to ask. Suppose you run the same classified ad for several weeks with no changes. Some people in the business will tell you sales will increase over time simply because more readers will respond to your ad having seen it several times. So, you decide to change your headline after it has been running for three weeks and sales increase by 7% in the fourth week. Is the new headline responsible or that the ad has been seen for four weeks?
There is a process called ‘split testing’ that can help. There are software systems available that will allow you to upload your sales letter to your website using, for example, two or three different headlines. Visitors will see one headline or another when they look at your page. The particular one each visitor sees is chosen at random by the system. You can decide on the best headline according to the number of sales each one pulls.
Keep this in mind: When you are selling a front-end product, your primary goal is to build your list. So if you, for example, decide to test your offer price, your interest is not in total income, rather in total numbers of sales because this will add more names to your list.
Testing is a subject that could occupy us forever. Have a good look at the ways your guru tests and follow his or her model.
That’s all for this time. See you soon.
Over the next two articles we shall talk a little bit about building web pages, hosting and uploading your pages (it sounds scary but it’s not really).
Thanks for listening :-)
Copyright © 2006 Mary Rice-Johnston & Golden Goose Direct. All rights reserved.
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