Dollars In The Details!
by: Daniel Levis
When it comes to your marketing message,
the little things count. Trouble is, youll never come to respect how much,
until you make a commitment to science.
Let me ask you something. Do you practice
Kaizen?
Kai what?
Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning gradual
and orderly, continuous improvement. Sound like you?
Or do you just wake up one morning &
decide that you need to re do your site?
Do you keep a diary?
Not the Anne Frank kind, a chronological
record of the results revealed by your ongoing marketing experience. Documentation
of exactly what happened last time you changed the copy on your web site,
ad campaign, or sales letter.
If youre like most, you dont bother to
go to this trouble, & you dont practice Kaizen.
Now I dont expect you to take my word
for it that seemingly trivial changes to your marketing message could have
a DRAMATIC impact on your results. I know better than that, see.
But heres a simple three-step method that
you can try out for the next six weeks to prove it, for yourself.
Theres nothing more fascinating than watching
human nature in action, & youll be amazed at the improvements you
can make in your profitability in just a short period of time!
A Simple Three Step How To
Follow this roadmap to easily & clearly
document your experience with minimum hassle.
Go ahead & try it. Its not rocket
science.
Step 1 Take a web page that youre running
right now, & decide what you would like to see it do better than it
does. Would you like to improve the conversion rate? Are average dollars
per visitor your thing? Maybe you need to drive cost out of generating
opt-ins, or referrals?
Make a copy of it
Now think about the flow of the page &
what might be discouraging people from taking the desired action. Sometimes
its the words youve used. Sometimes its the order of the words, or the
phrasing of the words. It could be the headline, or the opening paragraph,
take your best guess.
As a rule of thumb, changes to the headline
& the opening paragraphs, or around the calls to action will have
more impact than changes elsewhere on the page. But sometimes even subtle
changes like indenting the paragraphs, moving images from right to left
or left to right can have surprising effects.
Make just one change on your copied page,
and republish.
Now, create a folder on your hard drive
with todays date included in the file name, and save both of your pages
as HTML files in it.
Step 2 Advertise your pages with a redirect
link that splits the traffic evenly between the two pages. This is known
as split testing. There are a number of products out there that you can
use to do this.
Step 3 The page that records the most
conversions, is your control. You will want to reserve this judgment
until you have seen it make at least 30 conversions for statistical validity.
Once you have your control, go back to
your folder, & rename it by adding the current date to create a date
range. So for example, your file name will change from split test 1 May
25 04, to split test 1 May 25 04 Jun 25 04.
Now, carefully summarize the metrics that
you have recorded in a note pad, & save it in the folder with the HTML
files. Be careful to provide enough text explanation as necessary to ensure
that you will be clear on the meaning of the results when you revisit them
at a later date.
Also, be sure to document the traffic source.
Different sources of traffic can have a remarkable impact on results, but
thats a whole other topic of discussion.
You are now ready to repeat the process.
Copy your control & make another
change, thereby creating a new challenger, and so on.
To your success, & until next time,
Good Selling!
Japanese Proverb
"If a man has not been seen for three days,
his friends should take a good look at him to see what changes have befallen
him"
About The Author
Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant
& direct response copywriter based in Toronto Canada. Recently, Daniel
& world-renowned publicist & copywriter Joe Vitale teamed up to
co author Million Dollar Online Advertising Strategies From The Greatest
Letter Writer Of The 20th Century!, a tribute to the late, great Robert
Collier.
Let the legendary Robert Collier show
you how to write words that sell...Visit the below site & get 3 FREE
Chapters! http://www.Advertising-Online-Strategies.com/ad-strategies.html
"Adversity
is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly
knows whether
he is honest or not."
*Henry Fielding {1707-1754 English Author}
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