26th Mar 2008
I do not know the answer. . . but I know who does
When I talk to business owners, clients or prospects the most frequently asked question is “What works best in a letter or web sales page?”
It is a question any marketing professional or experienced copywriter is asked time and time again.
And none of us know the definitive answer! In fact the only people who do know what’s working is your customers. Because they are the people who responded to your offer and bought.
That’s all very well - but until you get the content of your message right; targeted specifically to the people you have identified as your ideal audience you’re not going to get those customers, are you?
Test, Test and Test Again…
I’ve said it before - and any marketing expert worth their salt will say the same thing - you must test. The 3 minimum things you should be testing are:
- Your offer:
-what your prospect will receive
-how it will be delivered (post; special delivery or, if online, digitally)
-price
-payment method (single charge or spread payments, or ‘try before you buy’)
- Your headline
- Your guarantee
Fred Black gives a good description of testing in his blog post Test, Test, Test.
Testing Takes Time…
Testing can be time-consuming - especially if you are testing and sending by post. And in this age of ‘instant satisfaction’ that delay may be too much.
If you are getting high traffic (large number of visitors) to your website you may decide to create an online sales page and use that for testing these different elements.
If you are not getting streams of traffic you can use Google Adwords - or a similar PPC (pay per click) advertising to drive traffic to your test sales page. (If you want to know more about Google Adwords check Ed Rivis’ Google Adwords Voyeur [Aff])
One distinct advantage of using an online sales page is that you can test more than one element at a time. It is known as multivariate testing.
You can use testing software to control this more complicated testing. I’ve just discovered a software package that looks extremely easy to use without costing an arm and a leg; I’m looking into it in more depth and if it lives up to its initial promise I’ll tell you about it in a future post.
In the meantime - remember - only your customers truly know what works.
I can only take an educated guess based on experience. ;¬D
~ Carol Bentley
P.S. If you are wondering what the [Aff] I occasionally include in my posts means, it indicates the link I’ve included is an affiliate link, i.e. if you follow the link, like what you see and decide to buy I get a commission from the vendor.
This is one of the ways you can create an income stream with your online blog.
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