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What A Difference A Test Can Make!

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So many people go on about split testing (including myself) I think is essential to demonstrate results when available. This is an excellent article from a guest blogger on Pro Blooger

ProBlogger wrote:

Contrary to popular belief, you need great copywriting skills to make a successful income online. For over a year, I thought publishing good material would not only help me go viral but also hurl me and my blog towards Planet Success faster than Superman gets rid of Kryptonite every time it’s in his sight.

No. Such. Luck!

 

I think superior copy on your web site will bring viewers but it will take time. You really do need promotion of your site.

 

In fact, very recently, I sent an email to my small email list and conducted a split test using Aweber. The idea came on a whim.

Since I was releasing my new free report, why not also alert the people on my email list of it, and get a few more downloads, re-tweets, and Facebook likes from them? After all, these so-called gurus keep yelping that the money is in the list. I decided to give it a go.

 

Actually, the money is not in the list. [Read more...]

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Do You Know If Your Tests Are Giving You Good Data?

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When you run tests on your web site, do you calculate the statistical validity of your tests?

Whoa you say, I not sure what you just said. It really isn’t that complicated, just a few big words, but very important words.

 

Amanda Dhalla writes:

According to the 2011 Marketing Sherpa Landing Page Optimization Benchmark Report, 40% of the over 2,000 marketers surveyed did not calculate the statistical significance of A/B and multivariate test results in 2010. 40%! That’s a big chunk of marketers.

 

That means that 40% of the marketers surveyed didn’t really know if the tests that they just ran are giving them true results or are just random occurrences.

 

But how can you tell when there might be problems with your numbers? Look out for these 4 types of validity threats:

Too small a sample size

To find a winner, test your layout and copy variations with enough test subjects to reach a high level of confidence in your results. But how many is enough? Several factors impact the sample size you’ll need including:

  • The current conversion rate of the page you are testing (note: not the same as the conversion rate of your entire site)
  • The average number of daily visits to the test page
  • The number of versions you’re testing
  • The percentage of visitors in the experiment (sometimes you want to test with just a segment of your traffic)
  • The percentage improvement you expect over the control
  • How confident you need to be in the results (usually 95% but could be higher if the risks of being wrong are high)

 

You will need to set up in advance what you will consider significant [Read more...]

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How and What Do I Sell?

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Many marketers who has just started a web site or a blog don’t know when to start selling to their audience. Even folks that have a seasoned web site or blog that they started just for their personal enjoyment and now realize that they have a potential source of income don’t know how or when to start selling.

Pro Blogger Guest wrote:

If you’ve ever asked another blogger, “When’s the right time to start selling on my blog?”, you’ll know you never get a solid answer.

Some say as soon as you get one person visiting your blog.

Some say never to start selling until you’ve got at least 100 subscribers.

And some say selling before you have 10,000 people on your email list is premature.

However, I’m here to set the record straight and give you a solid answer.

All of the above are great times to monitize your site. But what are you going to sell and how will you sell it.

Don’t sell: provide a solution to a problem

Aarrgh! Why didn’t I think of that? [Read more...]

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Are You A Professional Marketer?

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Seth Godin wrote:

The naive farmer farms as his parents, grandparents and great grandparents did. She plants, hopes and harvests. Anything that goes well or poorly is the work of the gods.

The professional farmer measures. She tests. She understands how systems work and is constantly tweaking to improve them. When failure happens, she doesn’t rest until she understands why.

I think that this is the essence of all marketing. The ability to measure what your market wants. It isn’t what you think and what you want, it is what the market thinks and wants that matters

Are you a professional marketer? Do you measure, test and [Read more...]

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