Market Testing: The Key to Advertising Success
If you have ever seen television commercials for shampoo, soap, or laundry detergent, you know that the companies that create these ads pay close attention to valuable market testing data. Market research is an important part of any successful advertising campaign and can greatly influence what products are advertised and how they are promoted.
Knowing where to focus your ad dollars based on market testing information is the only way to avoid wasting money on marketing campaigns that do not produce a satisfactory return on investment.
Here are some tips to help you get the most from your market testing data:
1. Make sure all market research is documented, analyzed and shared with the appropriate individuals.
2. Make sure that the market research is conducted accurately and consistently by those who will analyze and interpret it correctly.
3. Record information on all of your new product test ads in a spreadsheet or marketing plan book so that you can review, analyze and correct them later. Also, keep good notes on your whole advertising campaign so you can learn from any mistakes that occur along the way to overall success.
4. Make sure that your market testing information is evaluated and reviewed often.
5. If you ever have a chance to test-market a product before mass production and distribution, remember that you are testing it for the purpose of creating a final product and campaign, not just refining the product itself. You should be paying attention to sales figures, margins, delivery costs, publicity opportunities and any other factors that will come into play in your final product's success.
6. Remember that the market testing information is only as good as your ability to translate it into actionable items in your advertising campaign such as pricing strategies or newspaper advertising space requirements.
7. As you read through this article, think about the market testing information that you have gathered from the products and services that you currently offer to the public.
8. Determine which advertising strategies are working for you, and which ones need to be discarded and reworked in order to better serve your customers.
9. In order to get the most out of your market testing survey results, make sure that they are consistently and carefully documented with as much information as possible regarding your advertising campaign's history, original goals, results of test market phases and numbers or areas where improvements need to be made or changes made in order to increase effectiveness in future campaigns.
10. Determine how you will incorporate the information that you get from your market testing surveys and make sure that it stays in your marketing plan book. Having a reference for this information, as well as all of your other plans will help you to ensure that you are using the best marketing strategy possible for all of your ad campaigns.
11. If you are consistently monitoring your advertising campaign and evaluating it, you can avoid wasting time and money on ads that do not work.
12. When conducting market testing, if any significant results are found, they should be documented in detail by those responsible for analyzing them (in an understandable fashion), and this documentation should be shared with everyone who needs to know about it.
13. If you are conducting market testing and find that major problems exist with your product or the way that it is being marketed, take all necessary steps to correct the situation before you go forward with the campaign.
The information that you gather from market testing should be used to construct a final advertising campaign. However, do not expect to use all of your test results because they may not be applicable in your final product or service. You may need to test-market your product or service more than one time in order to get maximum results from it, but this extra effort will be well worth it in the end.
Many marketing experts will tell you that there is no single, infallible method that will produce the exact results that you want. However, using an extensive plan of market testing and evaluation may help to ensure that your ads work as effectively as possible.
By following these guidelines as best you can, you may avoid losing money on your advertising campaign and wasting time with it instead. You will be able to maximize the amount of money that is spent on your ad campaign and maintain a well-planned combination of advertising messages and tactics for maximum effect in your advertising efforts.
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"This article or any part of it may be copied or re-published if crediting this article to "Paul A. Thompson". Not for commercial use."
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This is one of the best articles on "market testing" I have ever read. The entire article is well worth reading, but if you are looking to convert this into a blog post, just skip down to point #11 and copy the content over that in your own article. This article is sort of like a guide map for how to do market testing and evaluate your advertising campaign. You want to make sure that you get plenty of accurate data from each test using various marketing tools. There are lots of useful tips in this article that you can use to improve your campaigns (see the comments for some great tips).
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"This article or any part of it may be copied or re-published if crediting this article to "Paul A. Thompson". Not for commercial use."
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The following are some links that may interest you:
Drawing from the book and author, "Marketing Letters", by Marcia Ritz-Simmons. Copyright (c) 1992 by Marcia Ritzer Simmons, all rights reserved. All rights reserved. This book is for personal use and reference only. No portion of this work may be used, in any form or by any means without written permission from the author personally.