The Edge Marketing

You can guarantee a good and usually impressive response to your direct response marketing letters and adverts by testing. There are different tests you can use, but it is important to test within your means.

In this article you discover what and how to test, so you know EXACTLY what is -- and what isn't -- working for you.

Test your headlines, content, offer and response mechanism.

Send your letter to a small portion of your database.

Monitor the response you get. Test another version with a small number of contacts again and check that result. Then, when you have created the most responsive letter send it out to the rest of your list.

If you don’t test you could be spending a fortune unnecessarily.

“Businesses have discovered that not testing a marketing campaign before running it can be ruinous -- testing, testing, testing is the only way to check if you have the right headline and offer”

For Adverts start small; with classifieds, and only increase in size when the response you get is at least break-even and, preferably, profitable.

WE SEE THINGS FROM OUR OWN PERSPECTIVE

The challenge we all have is to appreciate we see things from our own, personal perspective – and so does everyone else. The headline, offer or money-back promise or other promise that appeals to you may not appeal to other people.

It is crucially importance to get the headline right – effectively the ‘hook’ on your marketing fishing line.

Your job is to find the combination of headline, offer and results-promise that attracts the highest number of people in your target market.

MONITOR YOUR RESPONSES WITH CODING

Make sure you know which letter or advert is successful. Do this by coding the response mechanism so you know which version has worked for you.

The code can be a Dept reference in the address or a printed code on a response coupon or form.

Have a reference code for the letter or advert and change it every time you make an alteration – no matter how small. Doing this means you always know EXACTLY WHY your response dropped or increased.

In an advert, for example, you can use letters to identify the publication –perhaps the initials of the publication name and, in the case of a daily newspaper, which day of the week the advert was run.

Part of the postal address could be: Dept ST186a

Where

ST - represents the publication, e.g. Sunday Times
18 - represents the week number when the advert was placed
6 - is the advert offer or product
a - is the version of the advert.

The letter ‘a’ is altered whenever any changes are made, no matter how small. In this case, the second version would be 6b.

“Aim to continuously improve on the winning marketing pieces that are already working best for you”

When you have a ‘winning formula’, don’t rest on your laurels. Monitor the results so you know the trend. Keep your successful advert or letter as your benchmark and start to test slight alterations – only one element at a time. Always try to improve on what you’ve already achieved.

Testing is the only way you can be certain what you are putting into the marketplace works for you. Remember, the ONLY people who can tell you something is definitely working are those who buy.

Test one headline against another, test one offer against another, test one guarantee against another. Test, Test, Test. And you won’t lose a fortune on unsuccessful marketing campaigns.

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