Testing..Testing…123

Lose Small…Win Big

It’s a stupidly simple concept.

So few think of it.

Almost no one does it.

It’s testing.

Millions of dollars are wasted because of not doing it. Companies fail and lives are made a lot more difficult than they could have been.

When you’re done reading this you’re gonna whack yourself in the forehead with your best “coulda-had-a-V8″ move.

Here’s what I mean.

I might come up with the best marketing idea since sliced bread, in my opinion, and I could convince you that it’s true. You’d agree with me, pay a fee, convince yourself to fall in love with it and hope for the best.

The reality is…my opinion…and yours…doesn’t matter.

Squat.  Nada.  Nil.

Before you get your back up and your ego drives your eyeballs out of your sockets keep reading, you’ll get it.

The only opinion that matters is the people that vote…your clients.  And they vote with their wallets, credit cards and checkbooks.

Huh?

Don’t feel bad, not even the greatest minds get it.

Way back in 1992 during the presidential election campaigns the overhaul of the Medicare system was at the forefront.  While Daddy Bush and Bill Clinton debated the merits of their ideas, Ross Perot, in his best drawl explained, “You don’t just go changing the whole medicare system across the entire country, that’s just stupid.  You try it out in a county or a state first, see if it works…then when you’ve got something that works you roll it out across the country.”

Smart.

So do that with all your marketing.

Direct mail advertisers have been doing it for years.

They have a targeted mailing list of a million buyers.  They’ve got a new product they want to introduce.

Do they create their whole mail piece with the envelope teaser, stick letter, headline, hook and activation piece and mail it out to the whole list at the cost of $1 apiece?

Nope.

They send out a test mailing of 1,000 or 5,000…whatever the statistically relevant sample set size is.

If they don’t get it to an accepted profitability target, make changes and they retest.

Makes sense doesn’t it?

So why don’t you test?

You almost never hear of testing when it comes to your websites.

Think about it.

The opportunities to test are almost without limit.

You can test your headline, your offer, your pictures, your sign-up form…heck you can even test your background color or font!

The advantage of the internet is you can fail fast…and cheap.

You don’t have to send out a $5,000 test mailing.  You can send traffic to your site and see what works.

Fast.

Then try something else if the first one doesn’t work.

If it works it’s now the champ…or your control.

Then you try to beat the control.

And with multivariate testing tools like Taguchi, you can even test multiple variables at the same time.

So start today.

The next time someone tries to sell you a $10,000+ website ask them if that includes any testing versions.

It won’t.

They might tell you that they know what works the first time because of their vast experience.

Do you believe them?

Go ahead.

Or you can be like our smart Gold Plus level clients and start with a $1,500 web site and improve it as you go…while you make money.

The Japanese call it “Kaizen”.

Continuous improvement.

GM and Chrysler just did things “the way they’ve always been done”.

What will you do?