One of my colleagues recently asked me,”…out of all the categories of marketing, including online marketing, marketing strategy, ‘Web 2.0,'” yes he used “Air Quotes,” “…market research, etc., what was the most important?”

Without hesitation I burst with, “Man, it’s Marketing 101 – Testing is imperative!”

Many of my marketing friends might argue and profess that if you don’t have the right positioning statement, reach the target audience, timing, or have the right offer, you won’t succeed. And to that I say SURE! In fact, those are the very elements of a successful campaign that can be identified through proper Marketing Tests. Otherwise, how do you know that your positioning statement is correct or that you’re reaching your target audience in the most effective and economical way possible?

GREAT Flowchart for Analytics testing – by ConversationJourney.com

When someone says that campaign XYZ was a success, I ask, “how do you know?” The answer often has something to do with metrics around campaign performance. But this information is merely relative. If your click through rate was 20% and your conversion rate was 0.35% for an online campaign, it may have generated a positive return, but is 0.35% the best we could have done? Did we test the campaign to set expectations before full launch?

By testing multiple landing pages, various combinations of keyword campaigns, and other marketing tactics, you discover two very valuable criteria:

  1. What resonates best with your audience
  2. What are the proper expectations for performance

Once you’ve established a baseline, continue to test and experiment with different messaging, timing, and offers – all the time comparing your results against the baseline. Then, when someone asks you how well your campaign performed, you can offer an accurate critique based on actual relativity.

Continued measurement and testing is imperative for marketing success. If you’re not testing your campaigns on a regular basis, you’re missing out. Of course, once you establish a solid control (baseline), you’ll have a hard time out performing it. In general, you’ll only improve your success rate about 5% to 10% of the time. But continue to test, test, and then test some more. Your knowledge and your clients’ satisfaction will increase!

It’s difficult, time consuming and costs a just bit more, but imagine if you miss the mark on a campaign. How much would THAT cost?

How do you test your marketing? Do you?

Keep Cooking,
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

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