Test Test Test
Copyright Henry James 2022-2023
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If you must know 2005 was my year for getting properly interested in the internet.
Yes I know, a late starter!
Like many "net newbies" I downloaded loads of stuff from the web that year and went straight into information overload. So much so that some have remained hidden, unopened, and gathering cyber dust in my laptop archive for years.
Some I printed off and placed in folders. It's all still there, marked as: "Reports to be read when I have some time", sitting up in my loft - sound familiar to you too?
Like most moderately organised people I have to purge the info on my LapTop and PC and in hard copy from time to time. In doing so this time I came across a 2005 camtasia recording of John Reese and the "Reese Report". [Something I think you can no longer get]. But John Reese knows what he is doing. He was the first $1Million in a day man and, has been very successful on the web and business in general. And here is partly why...
Why testing can help you go from over 4.8% response to over 47%+
About five subject items into the Reese Report recording, was a marketing report on some work submitted by Ken Giddens (now deceased I believe).
Ken had a dog training and agility site, amongst many others. It was already getting a reasonable 4.8% response rate to his opt-in form. But he wanted to improve it. The 4.8% was from a text-only page, with a headline, a nifty story, and some tick boxes then an opt-in box.
"A picture paints a thousand words," he thought, so he added a simple but effective cartoon-looking static visual of a dog jumping through a swinging car tyre hoop, suspended by a rope from a tree, with the owner encouraging the dog along. What happened?
The response, like the dog jumping through the hoop, leaped up to 47.6% - a nearly 991% increase!
Now, what would a 991 times increase in leads do for your business?
Some marketers would not have given the "cartoon look" the time of day, let alone tried it. But look what happened - a 991 x increase.
Or, as I often come across: "That won't work in my market!" - Have you tried it?
Often you will find an old idea from a different area does work in your market - but you have to try them.
Then Ken thought: "What if I had audio too, that will boost results even further!"......he added an audio button insert that site visitors could press and listen to. But.....oh oh.......it decreased response down to 36.2% - but still a 752% increase on what he originally had.
Then he tried with the audio launching automatically (don't you hate that?) - his audience did too and response dropped off again.
Then he tried live video with a video greeting - response plummeted to 10.4% - still 200% more than he was getting from his original text page but 1/4 of his static visuals page test. Then he tried using a cartoon bot with a human voice - instead of the static visual - and his results went back to the same as his basic text page response, 4.8%.
Then he tried a cartoon bot with a computer-generated voice, and that went to 3.8% response.
In summary, Ken was an inveterate tester. One small change - the insertion of a picture, something that would take about 1 minute to add to a website - produced a response increase from 4.8% to a WHOPPING 47.6% response instead. Now, does that make testing sound worthwhile to you?
The message here is with whatever marketing you do - test, test again, try different media and test again, and then stick with your new control - but make sure you keep testing that too. But, it's horses for courses, some markets will love the cartoonbot, others won't, the same for video, audio, and all points in between. Test to find out what your market will respond to then promote, promote, promote.
If you have some marketing test results you would like to share with blog visitors please add your comments.
All the best, Henry.
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About the Author:
Henry James is a marketer with a passion for estate agencies and the property sector and specialises in marketing systems for estate agents and those in the property sector.
He helps you attract, convert and retain business to help businesses like yours make more money!
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