Big Eighties Band Teaches Marketers The Value Of Split Testing
” Some like it hot and some sweat when the heat is on.
Some feel the heat and decide that they cant go on.
Some like it hot, but you can’t tell how hot til you try.
Some like it hot, so let’s turn up the heat til we fry. “
A friend of mine is a software programmer/coder/marketer. He’s building a new split test product and I asked him to make sure it can run A/B/C split tests and not just A/B split tests, because many moons ago, I started trying a routine that I’d never heard of, but am sure somebody before me has tried.
It’s kind of the “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” type of split tests.
You know the old story. Goldilocks broke in, which is still be a misdemeanor in most places, “borrowed” some of the Three Bears things and then ran off.
In one instance, she gobbled porridge. One bowl was too hot, one bowl was too cold and one was just right.
Your ads, your sales letters, your landing pages, etc., are judged the same way by the people who read them.
Each market has a different tolerance for hype, hence the “Some Like It Hot” reference.
Some tolerate, even like, a lot of hype or heat.
Some want cold, technical details and calculations.
Some need, or want, audio, video, testimonials, social proof, etc.
Some like a balance of every possible element, hence, they want it just right.
Before you bother trying a new headline, before you replace Tahoma with Courier, before you change from red to blue, before you try with or without audio, photos, video and any other item that all good marketers split test, try this:
1) One landing page, ad or sales letter with all the hype you can generate.
2) One landing page, ad or sales letter with all the cold, calculating data you can dig up.
3) One landing page, ad or sales letter with a balance of all the elements.
The results may surprise you. Don’t be afraid to try hype (heat), as some markets that haven’t been blasted with way over the top marketing messages have been found to respond well to hype (heat).
Other markets, who have been typically hyped to heck, have been found to respond well to cold, calculations, data and charts, case studies, white papers, etc.
The moral of today’s story is this:
Online marketing split testing is very, very inexpensive, as compared to what the old masters, such as Ogilvy, Schwartz and Hopkins had available to them.
So use ” The Powerstation Method of Split Testing “ and see if you can easily and quickly find out just how hot your market likes their porridge.
” Some like it hot and some sweat when the heat is on,
Some feel the heat and decide that they cant go on.
Some like it hot, but you can’t tell how hot til you try,
Some like it hot, so let’s turn up the heat til we fry. “
The Pet Shop Boys Make Marketing Easy
So now you’re wondering how the heck I’m gonna tie the Pet Shop Boys into marketing.
One simple phrase: Joint Ventures
Remember the song the Pet Shop Boys released in 1985 titled Opportunities ( Let’s Make Lots Of Money ) ?
Here’s the marketing tips they gave us :
” I’ve had enough of scheming and messing around with jerks. My car is parked outside, I’m afraid it doesn’t work.
I’m looking for a partner, someone who gets things fixed,
Ask yourself this question: Do you want to be rich ? ”
I’m adding several people into the mix around here in the coming months. All of them will be joint venture partners in one way or the other.
I can only teach and reach so many people. Only so many will listen to my stories and catch the nuggets of wisdom inside.
By adding different voices, and voice will be the key since a LOT of it will be done by teleseminars and webcasts, I feel like we can all add some marketing weapons to our marketing arsenals.
” I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks,
Let’s make lots of money.
You’ve got the brawn, I’ve got the brains,
Let’s make lots of money. “
We all have different talents, skills and abilities. I happen to be a great refiner of marketing strategy. Just this past week I helped 4 people see avenues they never thought of. Gave them ideas as to how they could reach more people, more easily and end up making more money by doing so.
In turn, every one of them gave me ideas back. Suggested things I hadn’t though of.
All at no cost, since I have flat rate phone service.
By combining their brawn, their skills, their unique abilities and the tools I have available to help them showcase those talents, we can partner up and help each other.
No man, or woman, is an island. The more people you bring into you marketing mastermind or brainstorm group, the more ideas that become reality.
As bloggers, we need to reach out and form joint ventures with those who can help us and who we can help.
As marketers, sometimes we forget that our competition has a list of customers that will buy what we sell. All we have to do is allow our competitor to profit from the alliance.
You may not believe it, but 100% of nothing is still zero.
50% of whatever you competitor sells for you, is still more than zero.
” You can tell I’m educated, I studied at the Sorbonne.
Doctored in mathematics, I could have been a don.
I can program a computer, choose the perfect time,
If you’ve got the inclination, I have got the crime. “
There are some very talented people out there who don’t know everything you know.
You don’t know all that they know either.
Put those two educations, experiences and efforts together and you have a bigger, better and brand new outlook on any topic.
Don’t be afraid to join forces, if only for an ebook, an interview, a podcast or a teleseminar.
You don’t know what can come out of it. And you won’t unless you reach out and ask.
I’ll show you the first of four joint ventures I have already set up in a day or two.
In the meantime, reach out and ask someone who writes or speaks about the same topic you have knowledge of and set up a phone call between you and them.
You’ll be surprised at how much you might have in common and the two of you may just be better as a duo, than you are as a single voice.
If you just can’t figure out who to ask, or you don’t know what you could create if you did, send me an email to mike *at* simplenomics.com and as I have time, I’ll try to suggest who you might contact and what you could create if you did a joint venture.
Marketing Blogs: One Post A Hero, Next Post A Goat
You gotta like Mike Smock. Well, you don’t gotta, because a lot of folks don’t. But some do.
Mike’s a marketer from way back. Some of his ideas are way back and some are way out in front.
That’s probably said about most successful marketers, like Mike is.
Why do I bring him up ?
Simple. If you don’t read his blog, you should.
Here’s a taste of what’s waiting for you:
In this post, he’s a stud marketer after my own heart. He quotes Erv Frederick from Miller Lite, talking about their commercials that ” … aren’t meant to put trophies on the shelves of our advertising agencies, they’re meant to do one thing: Sell beer.”
Finally ! Someone who remembers what an ad was meant to do.
But then Mike says in another post that ” If You’re In Sales Or Marketing And You Consider Yourself An Advocate For The Customer…
Then you need to go to work for the customer. “
Bzzzz ! Wrong answer, Mike.
To be an advocate is ” to speak or write in favor of; support or urge by argument; recommend publicly. ”
You can be for the customer, without putting them in charge of the process.
I’m sure, not I believe, I’m sure that if you take care of the customer, make it easy for them to buy … again and again … they will.
That sounded like ego talking, Smock, not a salesman or marketer.
Too much money maketh a man proud … and stupid.
Ask John Daly. Or Ozzy Osbourne. Or Snoop Dog. Or Tom Cruise.
The Reason Most Business Websites Don’t Rank Well
Once again, last week, on one of the 20+ blogs we operate, I got an email from a company wanting me to pimp their product.
This one, as a lot are, was golf related. I searched several times on Google for what I would assume would be their main keywords.
After that dismal failure, I searched for one of their main products with their name in the search term I used.
Another dismal failure.
So I go to their site and see nothing but Flash, animation, redirects and fancy award winning type of design. Nice colors, jumping whirlygigs, etc.
The awards would not be for sales or search engine optimization, by the way.
Their web design team did what they wanted to do, which was make a pretty site, instead of a site that would actually sell the product.
I did one single, solitary, pitiful, little ol’ blog post and was #1 on Google for the previous search term … in 3 days.Again.
Little do they know that a correctly configured, properly tweaked WordPress blog would be all they’d need to assume their rightful place, on top of the search results for their own product name.
For a small fee, we’d build them one and for another small monthly retainer, we’d populate that blog with whatever content they wanted.
It helps that I’m a sales genius ( kidding here ), along with being a blogger and have a staff to do all the really hard work.
All I have to do is devise a strategy for the content, the link campaign and a few other things we won’t go into here. All white hat, I’m not smart enough to do anything sneaky. Remember, I’m a salesman, I can’t be that smart.
We’re doing 5 blogs as of now, for small businesses and one starting in a week or two for a state agency.
If your small, or not so small business, is tired of ranking poorly, if at all, contact me or some other sales-minded blogger and take back what’s yours.
How about the image in the post ? Blogging is a great big idea for all businesses.
Do You Need Help With Your Personal Brand?
A long time reader here at Simplenomics, Dan Schawbel is a blogger himself.
He’s also a master brander if I’ve ever read one.
After he sent me an email yesterday, I read about 17 posts and saw that he knew more about personal branding than any human should know.
I’ve added his blog to my Blog Roll and subscribed to his feed and want you to click thru to this blog about Personal Branding and do the same.
Thanks for being a reader, Dan and good luck with the blog.
Looking For A List Of The Top 150 Marketing Blogs?
Thru a post written by my blog friend David Meerman Scott, I found this resource for all of us to use.
Todd And(rlik) has taken a mountain of a task and given the prerequisite massive effort and has produced a ranking of the Top 150 Marketing Blogs.
Before you go criticizing his rankings, as you and I know, they’re always subjective to who, what and how that what was weighted.
Just do as I’m doing and use the listings to troll for info, links, friends and more.
There will never be a ranking systems that’s above reproach, but it’s a great start and he seems to be open to adding a blog … as I hope he’ll do with mine.
Thanks for the effort and the resource Todd !
EDIT - I wrote this on Sunday afternoon and emailed Todd, who added me to the mix and I came in at #56 at 11PM on 1-14-07 ! Thanks for adding me Todd !
Income.com - Coming in 2007
Over the last two days I’ve exchanged a couple of emails with a guy I wish was a close personal friend of mine.
I met him in May of 2002 at an Internet Marketing seminar in Pensacola, FL. He was an attendee, not a speaker. That part soon changed.
John Reese is one of the best internet marketers of our day. I haven’t the faintest freakin’ idea if he can sell anything in person or door-to-door, but he can sell online like very few can.
He’s a fanatical tester and tracker. That’s why he’s so good. Adjust, adapt, learn, grow, sell, collect.
He’s going to devote most, if not all, of his time to teaching internet marketing in 2007.
This is a little ironic, because over the last 2 weeks, as I figured out where I’m going to expend my energy in 2007, I unsubscribed from all but a couple of the ezines I read. Goodbye gurus !
The internet marketing guru crowd makes me ill. Hell, I’ve sold over $40 million dollars worth of products in just the last 13 years alone. You think you’re hot stuff because you wrote an ebook that sold 500 copies at $47 each ? How many repeat customers do you have ? I have customers who’ve been buying from me since day one. Decades. Your ebook is a piddly mess.
I had grown sick and tired of all the pitches they send, with no content to balance it out.
Good-bye to all those who send me 7 emails over a weekend. Good-bye to those who send me the same canned emails that 17 other people send out. Good-bye to those that add no real value to my brain’s desire to learn new things.
I can guarantee that John will make himself another fortune with this effort. Hell, he ain’t stupid.
But, read this excerpt from an email and then decide if you want to join me, as I join his groupies.
” After I first went to a few seminars and realized many (but not all) of the actual speakers were full of crap, I realized that people deserved better. And so I decided to do some teaching and offer some of my own expertise and experience to anyone that was willing to listen — after all, I had been working hard on this ’stuff’ since 1990, even before the “Web” really took off.
I would spend over three years going to seminars and often hanging out in the lobby until 3AM helping eople. I was sharing some of my marketing test results and other experiences. And I really enjoyed doing it.
It wasn’t long before I would hear other people whispering about me at those seminars… ” Who the hell is THAT guy ? ” (Even, though, they meant it in a positive way.)
But all that time I had nothing to sell those people. I wasn’t doing it to make money from it. I was doing it because I really enjoyed teaching — and I honestly thought people deserved better than what some of the speakers were spewing out of their mouths.
Many of the marketing speakers that I was exposed to during that time were teaching stuff I *knew* they hadn’t even tested. Because *I* had. And I knew that if they had also tested it they wouldn’t be teaching it (and selling courses and coaching based on it !) “
I can vouch for this. I saw John sit in the audience at a seminar well before he started teaching. I watched him design whole marketing campaigns for people on napkins, for free … during a break ! I listened as he explained to them the nuances of online marketing … whole they ate and he ignored his food and taught.
His passion for teaching is real and honest. He might be as fanatical about it as I am about face-to-face sales.
In December of 2003, I saw John again, at a seminar in the Florida Keys. Again, he wasn’t teaching, but was an attendee. Again, over a meal, he could help people like nobody else could.
I wish John and I had hit it off better. I rode his ass like a borrowed mule about golf and the fact I thought I could beat him. He probably thought I was a jerk. I kinda am … especially about marketing and sales.
He was younger and everyone thought he was ” it ” and it made me a tad bit jealous. Yeah, even I do the stoopid dance.
Turns out he is pretty damn sharp. And I missed a chance to suckup and become a friend.
I sell a lot of product OFFline and make a good bit ONline, but it’s me that will be the groupie here. Whatever his plan is for www.income.com, I’ll be along for the ride.
Use your real name and real email address, because you don’t want to miss this. He’s not gonna spam you, he won’t send you a bunch of crap every day, he’s gonna help you … and me … learn more about marketing on the ‘net.
And if he don’t, or the price gets too steep or the work too hard, just unsubscribe. There’ll be a nice one-click unsubscribe button for you, like all professional’s use.
Here’s the disclosure - John did not ask me to write one single word of this. He has no idea I’m doing this. He also has no idea about the revelation I made about wishing I’d been one of those who kissed up to him, instead of acting like a jerk and calling him out to the golf course.
Take my advice for 2007 - Find one or two people to copy, steal ideas from and pay for your education. If you’ll do that, you’ll grow towards your goal on 2007, instead of deeper into your rut.
I’m Almost Ashamed To Admit This, But …
I just picked up on a new post over at Copyblogger.com. I couldn’t believe that my friend Brian was actually promoting the reading of an Internet Marketers newest scheme to capture my email addy.
How could he justify this, I wondered ? Why would he give in to The Dark Side ?
I had already deleted about 22 of those freakin’ emails that wanted to be the first one to alert me to the new report by Mike Filsaime, so why should I treat Brian’s post any differently ? Because he had earned the right to scam me … once. He’d been giving and giving and giving, so if he wanted to take, just this once, it would be okay.
Well, not only had he not scammed me, he’s earned even more trust by delivering even more good advice.
I gave up my email addy to Mike and his machine., even though I’d found him hard to get away from with that damn Butterfly thang.
I jumped thru some hoops, gave away some personal info and downloaded The Death of Internet Marketing.
That would be my link, click thru now or come back later, but do not miss this chance to grab this report. Trust me, I read the whole thang, 61 pages, without stopping … and I took notes !
How often do you think I need to take notes on a marketing campaign, sales advice or info such as this ? Not very freakin’ often.
The first 12 pages are info that you need to read if you even think that you might think about being in the marketing biz over the next year or so.
On page 13, Mike says what I’ve been saying and thinking for a long time. You don’t have to have a passion for a niche to make money in it, you just have to have a strength that coincides with the niche in some way. People get way too much sillyass advice about seeking their passions and what they need to do is find their strength and use that.
I have no passion for several of the blogs/sites that we operate. BUT, I can sell ads and products off those sites and never need to be passionate, because I can sell knives at a gunfight. Selling is my strength and I use that to make money for our business, even though I have no passion for the product or topic.
On page 15, Mike says ” The last thing any of us need is more information. ” True.
Our problems as online business people is not lack of information, it’s lack of implementation.
My post that’s already written, but not due to hit the front page til Tuesday the 14th goes into what Mike talks about on page 19, efficiency versus effectiveness.
It’s so inexpensive to market on the ‘net that most of the marketers never learn how to really do a good job at what they’re doing.
Back in the old days, you had to be good or starve, because the costs of testing a campaign were so high.
I’ve already proven this report to be worth your time to read it, but if you miss what’s on page 29, where Mike deals with how to really get the most out of your niche product, you’ll be sorry.
I had already devised a plan to deal with this and seeing Mike put it on paper confirmed my thoughts to the max.
It’s kinda like the Gold rush days of 1849 all over again. Who do you think made the most money -
The gold prospector
or
The guy who sold him his tools ?
Starting on page 46, Mike gives you what some of us already knew was a better long term strategy for launching a product of any kind. Miss this and you’ll never get the most out of your niche.
I am already in the process of doing this with a niche product in the area of a musical instrument. Again, I have no passion for the topic, just the product and my ability to sell, which is my strength.
And on page 52 he goes on to tell you what I’ve been saying all along. If you find something that works, makes you gobs of cash and is the bomb of marketing …. shut the hell up and don’t sell it to the freakin’ general public !
That’s what ruined several of the great techniques that have been made obsolete in the last 2-3 years.
When you sell it to everybody, some idiots will buy it and won’t ever learn the proper way to market with it, they’ll abuse it and the search engines will ban it.
It’s exactly what the sploggers are trying to do with blogs … ruin them.
That’s happened way too many times in the last 2-3 years, so find a way to keep it amongst your mastermind group and use it forever, instead of letting every doober out there get a copy and ruin it.
There’s 61 pages here, a copy of his PayPal report, which you NEED and a survey. It won’t hurt you at all and you will learn a lot, so go download a copy right now !
Marketing Lesson From Ryder Cup Matches
Once again, the America’s dirty dozen is behind the 12 golfers from Europe heading into the final singles matches on Sunday.
Once again, the Americans will probably lose and the Euros will keep posession of the Ryder Cup.
Why ? Simple. 2 reasons.
1) Their captain put all his eggs into one basket. He had 4 really good players and he put them on two teams.
2) The captain didn’t give enough rope to the new guys, just because they were new guys.
Don’t make these mistakes in your marketing strategy.
Our captain, Tom Lehman, could have split those four guys up, put them with four guys who aren’t as highly regarded and had 4 good teams. Maybe they win four points.
Why should he do this ? Think of it like this - If you take your four best players and make them into two teams, they might, I repeat might, get two points. Two.
If you take the four best players and seperate them and put them with four players that they can guide, you might get four points. Four.
In this case, four beats two … every time.
He also sat the rookies too long and didn’t give them the chance they deserve, the respect they deserve. Consequently, the whole team was conscious of that and played tenatively, thinking they had to cover for them.
In reality, those guys earned their spot and should have been given the chance to suceed or fail.
In sales, if you hire a man to do a job, let him do the job and see if he fails or suceeds. Then and only then, can you determine if he’s gonna be on the team or not.
If you try to cover for a weak team member, sooner or later, they’ll be put in the spotlight and you, as the captain, and that team member will have to sink or swin, on his actions.
Everything rises and falls on leadership. If you have a team member who can’t hold their own, get rid of them now, BEFORE they cost you the match.
Don’t think that your job as leader is to just let your guys do their jobs. You have to be the guide, the leader, and make the tough decisions.
If you make as many poor ones as our guy did, you have a new title - Loser.
He made one other mistake I just thought of - he stuck with losing teams too long.
In a previous sales position I held, years ago, I was the King Daddy of the 7 salesmen we had.
There were several salesmen who had accounts that had not and would not buy from them, but the Sales Manager would not give those accounts to me or any other salesman.
If you have accounts that aren’t buying from you, won’t buy from you, demand that somebody else call on them for the good of the company.
Check you ego at the door and be a team player.
And if you’re a Sales Manager and notice some accounts that will not buy from one of your salesmen, give the account to somebody else and see if they can get the job done.
Don’t do like our Ryder Cup captains do and keep sending the same tired, old guys out to get their asses kicked by one guy who seems to have everybody’s number. Somebody on that team has got to be able to beat him (your competition).
If I was our Ryder Cup captain and I saw that one guy on the other side had kicked our butts 3 straight sessions, I have a huddle with my guys and ask for a volunteer to go kick his ass.
Sometimes in sales, there’s somebody in your organization that’s waiting for you to give ‘em a chance to prove themselves. Don’t be afraid to ask for somebody to stand up and be counted.
I, for one, have never been one to not accept a challenge like that and will jump in there against the reigning champ in a heartbeat.
He’s the champ, so what do I have to lose ? Nothing but a little hide off my backside, so let me at ‘em.
Take that approach the next time you have a sales meeting and see if it doesn’t get you a better chance at winning the battles that are out there, in the sales arena.
Marketing Lessons From Jet Li
Tomorrow is the day my vote-getter for Movie of the Year comes out. The last martial arts movie by one of the Top 2 martial arts movie stars of all-time, right up next to Bruce Lee.
Jet Li is fearless and that’s what you should be as a sales and marketing player.
Anybody can be a chicken*snap*, as the wife would say, marketer or salesperson, but if you’re gonna go, be a player and GO BIG !
There’s one, single, solitary marketing lesson that we can all learn from Jet Li -
Simple.
