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Why Test Your Marketing? How To Find What Works To Make More Sales

To those 'in the know' this question sounds incredibly simple. But if you've never come across the idea, it can be revolutionary. It can hit you straight in the gut so next thing you know, you can't get it out of your head.

At least that's what it did to me.

When I discovered the simplicity of testing your marketing, I wondered why more businesses don't do it. And I wondered how I could get started doing it.

Here's the basic premise -- let's say you have a list of 10,000 people you want to market to.

You want to find out what works best to get them to buy your product.

First you split that list in half, so you have two lists of 5,000 people. To make sure your test counts, you should split the list 'randomly' -- which, for these purposes, can be as simple as doing every other person.

Once you have your two lists, you print up two different marketing pieces -- one for each list. There are a lot of strategies for creating different marketing pieces. But when you get down to the core of it, the main thing that is important is that each piece is noticeably different than the other one.

Also, when designing your marketing pieces, you need to include some element (like a coupon with a special code on it) that lets you track which responses come from which marketing piece -- this is important for what comes next.

Now you send out both marketing pieces to their list of 5,000 people. Then you watch the response roll in, keeping track of how many responses each piece got.

If there was a significant difference between the two pieces (there was, wasn't there?), one of them will definitely give you better results than the other. The difference will be obvious.

Based on the results, you'll know which piece is better, and you can continue using it. Each time you use it, you'll get more profits while spending the same amount of money. And that's a beautiful thing!

You can also look at the differences between the two pieces, and hopefully understand what makes them different, and why that would make your prospects more likely to buy. Then you can apply that in the future to create more successful advertising and marketing.