Marketing Tests - Sample Before You Commit
For entrepreneurs looking to expand their customer base, it can be tempting to run through a marketing test with little to no preparation. But, if you're not careful, this could lead to disastrous results.
To avoid this let's take a closer look at the marketing tests you should consider when deciding how best to promote your business online and what can help you get the most out of running those tests.
Web Design And Marketing Testing
In order to test your web design and/or marketing, you're going to need to have a firm grasp on your marketing goals and objectives before you begin. Once you have these goals, it's important that you then determine how you're going to reach them.
Are You Looking To Increase Your Website Traffic?
If so, the first step is to determine what type of traffic will help you achieve your goal. There are two basic types of online traffic: organic traffic and paid traffic. Organic traffic comes from sources like search engines (organic or paid search) or from websites themselves (blogs, forums, etc.). Paid traffic is simply paid traffic; such as PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, social media advertising and email marketing.
Here are the basic benefits of each type of traffic:
• Organic Traffic - This is the lowest cost traffic. The goal here is to have your website or blog grow naturally which typically requires listening to your customers and incorporating their feedback into your site. You can get started on this by creating a blog from scratch, do some research on popular resources and learning how to stay on top of blogging trends.
• Paid Traffic - This type of traffic has higher costs but offers more targeted results than free traffic like search engines or other sources. You have many options for paid traffic: Paid Search, pay-per-click, social media advertising and email marketing. Paid traffic is typically a lot more effective than free traffic because you will receive results that are more closely aligned with your goals.
Once you've completed your research on which type of traffic you'd like to use and the benefits they provide, you should consider what the next step would be. Would it be helpful to answer some questions about how exactly you're planning to reach these goals? And what's the best way to get started?
The Answer To This Question Will Determine Your Marketing Plan...and whether or not your testing methods will benefit your business.
How To Run The Best Marketing Testing Online
In order to run the best marketing tests online, it's important you prepare. There are three main steps that you'll want to take in preparation:
1. Formulate your goals/objectives before running a test. What do you want to achieve? By clarifying these goals, you are able to create a well formulated marketing plan which will assume your company is ready for major changes in the way of testing. For example, if you're looking to increase your website traffic and sales, your goal should be linked directly to achieving these two objectives. (e.g. we want to increase traffic by 10%, and increase sales by 10% per month for two consecutive months.)
2. Determine your audience, including who you are trying to reach and how you plan on reaching them. Do you know enough about your target audience to make a well-informed decision? If not, take a few hours and do some research on consumer demographics and what would be most effective for your business. Once you have this information, think about whether or not any further testing needs to be done. This can help determine what type of marketing tests will get the most out of your advertising budget.
3. Prepare and run your tests. When you choose to run a marketing test, it's a way to weed out the negative results and replace them with positive ones. There are four main types of tests that you can run: A/B, multivariate, search engine-based and sales-based.
A/B Testing - This type of test allows you to compare two different versions of your site or pages to decide which one provides the best results. For example, if you're looking to increase your sales, A/B testing allows you to compare different landing pages and the amount of conversions they generate.
Multivariate Testing - This type of test allows you to run several different types of tests in addition to A/B testing. For example, you could compare your landing pages, call-to-actions and even your promotional emails. The purpose here is to see which elements help you achieve the most conversions.
Google-Based Test - This type of test is conducted within Google AdWords and involves running ads on Google sponsored search terms. For example, if you were looking to increase sales, you could run a test that compared two landing pages on Google sponsored searches that are associated with your products.
Sales Based Testing - This type of test relies on data collected from customers who have bought one of your products or services.