Testing

1. John Smith Matters More:

You may love your ad.

However, the guy who needs to love it is not you and it isn’t us. It’s
John Smith. How can you know if he likes it or not? Test you marketing.
Before you spend all of your money sending out that clever and educational
postcard to every one of your prospects, send it out to a few. See how
they respond. See if they respond. If they love it, great. You know you
have a winner. If they don’t, you can tweak the messaging or the offer and
try again. And try again, if needed.

2. Be A Scientist:

Test your marketing like a scientist would test in the
lab. You need controls and one variable per test. Okay, sometime time
doesn’t permit, but when it does you want to alter your marketing bit by
bit to test it against the prior version. If it goes out once and is a
bust, change just the offer and try again. If you change the offer and the
headline you won’t have any real idea what did the trick. It may have been
both. It may have just been the headline and now you’re stuck ordering a
hundred gift cards you could have avoided buying.

3. Test Another Hot Button:

One thing that you can test is your marketing
message. If you try a benefits of ownership hot button for sunrooms, for
example, and it doesn’t generate the leads, next time you might want to
hit a vendor selection hot button. Remember, you are testing this on a
small group and not necessarily the same group. If you keep hitting the
same group the frequency and not the messages may be having the desired
effect.

4. Test The Medium:

If you think your message is great, test the medium
you send it in. If you tried a postcard, try a brochure. Try lumpy mail if
you still are not getting John Smith’s attention. Marketing takes finesse
and finesse is rarely lucked upon. It takes work.

5. Test Smartly:

One great way to test your marketing message quickly and
relatively cheaply is through Internet advertising. You can use paid
search or display ads. You can even advertise on Facebook and hone your
message pretty quickly. How? You can change the messaging daily without
incurring extra printing or postage costs. Get your headlines right on the
Internet and your print advertising gets a leg up.

Want to find out more? GET A MARKETING EVALUATION