Test … Test … Test And Double Test Your Results

September 11th, 2008 Posted in Business Monitoring and Reporting, General, Making Sale, Offline Marketing, Prospecting, Sales Tools

Test … Test …
Test And Double Test Your Results

Once you start to monitor what you are doing, you’ll be amazed at what a
difference a simple change in a headline (without changing the rest of your ad)
will bring. Or the way you greet a customer in a one-on-one situation, or who
you send your letters to. All these can impact on your results.

Often opinions differ as to whether or not something will work, and the only
sure way of knowing what your customers want is to put it to the test. Try all
versions and analyse the results. The very sophisticated companies will even pay
to have 2 different ads inserted into the same magazine or newspaper on the same
day.

So here is a little ‘headline’ quiz, just to check that you’ve been paying
attention. In each case one headline got much better result than the other (and
both headlines were written by advertising experts). In all cases the rest of the ad
stayed exactly the same. You’ll find the results at the bottom. Here they are:

1. A: To Every Woman Who Would Like A Career In Interior Design
    B: Can You Spot These 7 Common Decorating Sins?
2. A: How To Turn Your Careful Driving Into Money
    B: Car Insurance At Lower Rates If You Are A Careful Driver
3. A: This Is The Ad We Had To Cancel 3 Months Ago Because We Sold Them So Fast
    B: All Leather Handbags For Only $28. The Last Time We

Ran This Ad We Sold Out In 48 Hours.

4. A: How To Make A Chocolate Pudding In 6 Minutes
    B: Tonight Serve This Ready Mixed Chocolate Pudding
5. A: What Would Happen To Her If Something Happened To You.

    B: Retirement Income Plan.
6. A: Announcing An Important Revision Of The Bible
    B: The Most Important Bible News In 340 Years
7. A: The Old Fashioned Hook And Eye Raincoat At An Old
             Fashioned Price
    B: Can’t Lose This Raincoat ‘Cause It Has Their Name On It
8. A: Girls . . . Want Quick Curls?
    B: Does He Still Say . . . “You’re Beautiful?”

That should be enough to make my point about testing, monitoring . . . and
headlines. This is so important and yet, only 1 or 2 businesses out of 100 are
doing this. Sometimes it’s just a word or two that makes all the difference.
The headline of an ad which said “Hay Fever” got 297 calls. The headline
“Dry up Hay Fever” got 380 calls. That’s 27% more fungolas (that’s Spanish for
money I think) in your pocket. That’s nothing to sneeze at, is it?

Headline Quiz Results

1. B (250% better) 4. B (66% better) 7. B (1000% better)
2. B (1200% better) 5. B (500% better) 8. A (220% better)
3. A (300% better) 6. B (74% better)

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