Online internet marketing & scientific analysis - why test your strategy

If you are selling either products or services on the internet your objective is to, it is assumed, sell as many as you can reasonably manufacture or supply and maximise your income and revenue generated.

How you do that is dependent on a number of factors; market exposure, size of market, price, perceived value for money, availability, features and benefits for user and consumers and others...

Some of these will be known from traditionally collected data from business activity, government or trade bodies etc but some are harder to determine without testing particularly in situations where there is no direct or face-to-face contact as is the case with internet trading.

Many factors influence the buying process some of which relate to elements unrelated to the product or service itself such as:-

• ease of site navigation
• ease of order process
• length of sales letter
• sales copy content
• colour of advert (background, text, headlines etc)
• web site design
• guarantees and returns policies
• and many more...

Marketing and selling online is no different from traditional methods; you have to identify, find and offer your particular product or service and do it profitably.

You may have spent time, effort and good money building your web site, optimising and promoting it with the search engines and achieving success attracting qualified potential customers to your site, but are you converting all these visitors to buyers.

The question is "If not, why not..."?

It is only by testing various elements of the sales offer that you can identify which of these contribute positively and those which have a negative impact.

How to test your online internet marketing strategy scientifically

By applying a scientific rigour to your testing and testing each and every element individually will you find out what it is that works and what it is that doesn't.

Using split-run testing methods enables you to test two or more versions of your marketing message to see which one results in a higher conversion ratio. By creating two or more versions of your product/service page or even two or more separate web site designs, depending on visitor numbers, over a period of time you will have a statistical analysis of performance for the variable chosen.

Continually testing any changes made and analysing the results will enable you to both maximise the performance of your site and the return on the investment made developing it.

When a visitor is directed to your site either by direct access, from other promotional material or from a search engine response page they will be presented with one version of your test page and their actions monitored until they leave or complete the desired actions eg complete order form or request information.

To maintain the validity of results, if they leave before completing the process, a record of their visit is made so that when they return they are always presented with the same test page and not exposed to a different version than the one originally viewed. This test method ensures that you are able to identify which test subject generated the result.

This method equally applies whether you are testing 2 or 10 alternate pages or indeed 2 or 10 web site layouts.

What is the cost of internet marketing and testing?

Perhaps the question should more realistically be, "What is the cost of not testing your online internet marketing strategy"?

Somebody, many years ago now, made the comment to the effect that "I know that 50% of advertising works - the problem is I don’t know which 50%".

The statement applies equally well to traditional advertising media, print & direct mail, poster and online internet advertising and promotion.

It may never be possible to know 100% what does work but not to test the effectiveness of various techniques, messages, approaches and offers in a variety of combinations leaves only guesswork and subjectivity. Not the most efficient way to build and grow your online business.