What matters when testing your marketing?

From the desk of Roy Furr, Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

It’s easy to get excited about testing your marketing. The prospect of increasing conversions from 10% to 2,000% or more is really motivating. But when you get in there to actually do the testing, it can be a little confusing — what should you test to get the best results, and why?

In my ebook — The Taguchi Testing Handbook — soon to be released with Bob Bly’s CTC Publishing, I cover this topic in a lot of detail. Much more detail than I can cover in a blog post. But I’ll share some of the basics here, to get you started on the right track.

Test high probability areas

On your landing page or other web page, there are inevitably a few areas that jump out and attract the eyes from the moment you load the page. These probably include your headline, any image at the top of the page, the first paragraph of body copy, the first list of bullet points… the list could go on, and is different from page to page.

When I’m looking to run a test, I want to know the first couple things that jump out to any visitor to the page. Why? Because these are what almost every visitor looks at, and what will probably have the most impact in testing. When there’s something that every visitor to a page focuses on, even for a split second, it has the potential to increase conversions through testing.

Once you’ve picked out the two or three most prominent page elements for testing, you may wonder what else to test (especially for Taguchi testing, which requires many more than 2 or 3 variables). Here’s a list of landing page elements that qualify as “high probability areas” — they’ve been influential in quite a few of the tests run:

• The main headline
• The subhead right below the main headline
• The greeting (”Dear friend,”)
• The offer (Including bonuses, packaging, delivery method, etc.)
• Price
• Guarantees (30-day, 1-year, 100% money back, 100% money back + $100 donated to a charity in your name)
• The main picture at the top of your ad
• Trust/credibility icons (BBB, Hacker-safe, payment processor)
• P.S. (restate offer, restate guarantee, a mini FAQ, etc.)
• Reinforcement copy in the checkout process or on the order form

These may or may not be influential variables on your landing page. And they may not be the only influential variables on your page. But each is worth testing because just one could increase your response by as much as 2,000%. And by testing multiples the increases will stack up even greater.

Once you’ve decided what to test, you need to decide what your different input will be. This is the most crucial step of the testing process. I’ll cover that in my next post, so make sure you’re registered on the right for updates.

Good testing!

- R

Tags: testing your marketing, increasing conversions, The Taguchi Testing Handbook, Bob Bly, CTC Publishing, Test high probability areas, landing page, headline, body copy, bullet points, increase conversions through testing, Taguchi testing, landing page elements, subhead, offer, credibility icons, increase your response

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