Tracking and Testing. They are different…but it amazes me how many people don’t know.

I’m not talking about the average person walking down the street…but men and women working in marketing and advertising.

Here’s what’s going on: Since I’ve come back to Vancouver I’ve been meeting with several business owners and a handful of the top advertising agencies in the city.

It’s a habit to take each conversation into talking about their business development and sales efforts and what their doing with

In part I’m happy. Why? Because many companies and agencies are tracking their results.

The internet has made finding out how many people come to your website, where they come from and how long they stayed on your website a breeze.

That’s good news.

It’s great to hear that agencies are having to become more accountable and that companies are interested to know ‘how well’ a campaign did.

Statistics like these are extremely valuable. Not looking at them would be a tragedy, an injustice to your marketing.

But folks, tracking statistics is just the start.

Tracking the results of a single ad or website page is great…but without testing…oy vey, you’re missing what it’s all about.

You see, having all that valuable data is fine but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t have anything to compare it to…to know its potential.

This isn’t information I’ve just invented.

$100 million plus financial service and publishing companies that really understand marketing will never send out just one sales letter or ad. They will, without a doubt test sending out two variations or more of a sales letter.

Or send out a new letter to compete with an old letter.

Often times two ads with the exact same body copy, the exact same offer, but with a different headline…can increase your response by 50%, 100% or more.

Putting together a mailing or ad campaign with no variations is such a waste. You roll it out…tally up the results and then what…it was poor, so so, great.

You can’t really know how well it did or more importantly could have done if you didn’t test it.

Tracking is a given. But if you’re not testing your marketing…you have no idea how well you could do…you might be sitting on a potential gold mine.

So how do you test your marketing?

• You can try different headlines on ads.
• You can split-test web pages that your customers first see.
• You can try different images, layouts, offers and much more.

Here’s An Example
Let’s say you sending out a sales letter. You send out 3 sales letters. 500 of the Version A. 500 of Version B with a different headline. And 500 of Version C with a new offer.

You track the results as they come in. Guess what? You find out that Version B’s headline got 15% more responses than Version A’s. Even more important you find that Version C’s new offer pulled 50% more orders than the offer in Version A and B.

So what do you do now? You merge the offer from Version C with the headline from Version B….send out the letter to the remaining customers on your list.

You’ll be getting a higher response rate and many times the sales.

Knowing this you’d be silly to send out the Version A letter only and track its results.

Do yourself a favor. Don’t just track. Track and test.

You’ll thank me for it and so will your bank.

To your success,

Michael

I got a short one for you today but it’s… 

An Amazingly Persuasive Speech

Mr. Rogers Persuades The US Senate To Give $20 Million In Funding to CPB in 1969!

I received this from Perry Marshall’s newsletter and thought you definitely would want to see this.

Nixon wants to cut funding for the broadcaster because of war costs.

Watch this video and see…

…How Mr. Rogers crafts his words and uses language full of imagery and emotion to sell his argument.

It works. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41lJIhW7fA

 To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing

It’s been a crazy morning and I’ve just had a chance to sit down. But I wanted to make sure you got today’s post…

There’s a lot of talk recently about Personal URLs. I’m glad people are talking about it…but personalizing marketing and advertising communications is nothing new.

Actually for those of us who have been using direct marketing and direct mail it’s a given – common sense that is.

Why would you want to personalize your marketing messages and what’s all this talk about PURLs (Personal URLs that is)?

First off, imagine a letter arriving in your mailbox. It doesn’t have your name on it…you might just throw it in the garbage right? But let’s say you proceed to open that letter. You unfold the letter and see that it starts with “Dear Friend” or “Dear Car Owner”…if they don’t have a headline or graphic that grabs your eyeballs right away…good chance that paper is going to the trash (though I hope you’d recycle it).

Now, taking a step back. If that envelope had your name on it…close to 95% of people would open it. When the letter has your name on it…you almost feel compelled to read it don’t you?

That’s why hundreds of marketing tests have shown that the more you personalize your communications (just like the more you segment and target your market) the higher response you’ll get.

Let’s take a U-turn now and cover the second point. Personalized URLs.

I’ll break it down and tell you in basic English how this works…

Let’s say your a wine distributor and sell expensive and rare bottles and you want to get some new customers. You buy a targeted list of people likely to buy $150-$500 bottles of wine (in a future article we’ll talk about lists) and put together a postcard.

Here’s where the personalization starts.

The postcard has each prospects name on it (so it feels personal). The postcard copy talks about the history of these wines, how rare they are, what a great investment they can be, and how special you’ll feel having some of these in your collection.

That’s where the personalization often stopped.

 But the next step is where the prospect is told to access a special link just for them that will give them more details about the wines and how they can get a free gift. The URL might look something like this www.henderson.raregrapes.com

Now Mr. Henderson is feeling excited about their name being in a URL. What is it he wonders? Is it a special website just for them?

Yes and no.

What will happen is that they’ll access a website that is automatically generated. Software for Personalized URLs allows website owners to use a prospect or customer database…the software picks up the information you want to be inserted into the webpage like First Name or Location, etc and automatically puts it into the personalized web page.

The template of each page is pretty much the same. However, on top of automatically inserting new text in key areas of your message you can also set it to show different pictures for different people…so you could personalize it by showing pictures of people the same age as the prospect or same background, etc…there is much room for personalization.

If you were targeting 10,000 prospects it would take you months to set up 10,000 pages. But with this technology you can just set the level of personalization and what you want to change and then select your database.

Once prospects come to your website you can capture more of their information, send them personalized emails and other communications.

Of course the best software allows you to fully track every aspect of the campaign so you can adjust it along the way and improve each step as you role out more mailings.

You’d probably also be interested to know that personalization is already being used in automatic telephone marketing systems and SMS messages.

I haven’t yet seen it in video…but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was out there.

Just remember. The fundamentals of marketing or advertising haven’t changed here. It’s just a new way to deliver and enhance your marketing and advertising messages.

Next week’s topic is going to blow you away…you’ve probably thought about it before…but we’ll set the record straight.

To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing

Bam!!!! We’re back. Picking up on where we left off las time….Here we go.

The missing ingredient and key to the success of any of your marketing and advertising whether print or online is testing.

I remember a few years back while working with a large Japanese ad agency…I was talking with one of their senior account executives about the need to test every ad we put out.

The exec told me “you can’t test advertising…there are too many factors.”

This guy was a veteran of the industry. Surely he was joking…pulling my chain. But he wasn’t.

He honestly thought that you can’t effectively measure the effectiveness of advertising.

Since that time I’ve met many business owners and executives that firmly believed (or just didn’t know) you can test your advertising to find out exactly what is working and what isn’t.

Online advertising has changed all this. More companies and agencies have started to put their advertising and marketing dollars into online media…where they’ve been taught to look at the number of clicks, leads, aquisitions, etc.

Now that’s great. Finally agencies are having to become more accountable. Their campaigns must get results or else they face losing their accounts.

Thanks to online media the industry is changing.

But what about TV and print? Why do we still see commercials of people acting like cats and men dressed like giant bees…ads that are considered ‘interesting’ or ‘creative’ by some…but surely do little to boost sales or build ‘the right’ brand image.

If these companies started testing their ads they’d quickly see something they wouldn’t be happy about…their work stinks.

Actually, if they are trying to win creative awards…they’re probably doing a great job. But as a business owner or company exec…I’d be gritting my teeth in anger knowing that my company’s marketing dollars are going down the drain because my agency wants to be creative.

Okay I get the picture, you say. So I’ll end my rant there.

What you need to know is this. Every piece of your marketing can be tested. Here’s how:

A print ad can have a specific call in number. When someone calls that number you can track the number of leads or aquisitions you make.

It’s the same with TV ads…you can use a URL that you’ve created special for that ad.

Companies that give their standard corporate URL in their ads are wasting a great opportunity. By providing a different URL they could track many more details and collect valuable data.

You can also split test 2 different ads to compare the effectiveness of different headlines and offers.

The result – you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. You’ll get a much better ROI…and you’ll make a lot more money.

Next week we’ll look at how personalizing your marketing can take your profits through the roof.

To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing

10 points you must review before you submit your ad – continued.

Alright, welcome back. Let’s dive right in…

• Your design should be easy to read; it’s amazing to see so many ads that use pretty pictures and all the colors of the rainbow..why amazing, you ask? Because you can’t read the damn ad. If your reader can’t read your ad – there’s no point. Black text on white is still the easiest to read. Also make sure your fonts, alignment and spacing are all set up so your ad is easy to read and understand.
• Ask questions give answers; asking your reader questions gets them emotionally involved in the copy. Answering the question reconfirms your an expert and more importantly gets the prospect thinking – “that’s what I thought!” or “really?”…good job you’re getting them involved again.
• Use stories; whenever possible include a story in your copy. Stories are powerful to help sell…doesn’t everyone love a good story?
• Spend time on your headline; this one is huge. Regardless of what a fancy ad agency may tell you your headline is the most important part of your ad. If the headline doesn’t pull the reader’s eyeballs in – you’re ad is toast. Make the headline count.
• Ask for the order; it’s ridicuolous how many advertisements don’t ask the reader to place an order. Ask and many of them will buy. Give them a reason to buy now, and many more will.

These ten points are the basics. There are more points on my checklist, and there is much more I can say about each one, but for now this will get you going.

Actually, there is one more point that you must know about.

Listen, the point is so important it deserves a post on its own. So we’ll cover it next time.

To your success,

Michael Zipursky
Relagy Marketing

10 points you must review before you submit your ad

Today I’m going to show you the basics of writing a successful advertisement.

And while I can’t guarantee that just by following these points you’ll have a winner – without knowing your product or service, market, etc – these concepts are the base for ads that get results time and again.

• Write the ad from a person to a person; don’t write the ad like it is coming from many people at a company. Your writing should be directed to your reader, this includes being personal; don’t use “we” use “I”.
• Relate to your reader; find ideas or ways of thought that many of your readers have and connect to them on that level.
• Be specific; use data and testimonials as proof to back up your claims of how good your product or service is.
• Write like you talk; forget fancy language and sentences that rhyme. Your readers are more comfortable reading the way they talk — it becomes like a conversation.
• Be concise; use short words instead of long ones when you can. But, if a long word makes your point better – use a long one. Keep your paragraphs short and don’t be afraid to use short sentences – they open up the page for the reader and can provide impact.

Okay, that’s it for today…we’ll cover the next 5 points in a few days.

See you back soon.

To your success,

Michael Zipursky
Relagy Marketing

If you are focusing the majority of your marketing budget on emails and e-newsletters – your business may be leaving a big stack of bills on the table.

Here’s why: It’s easy to get swept up in the ‘E-everything’ era. The latest this, the fastest that. But the principles of what marketing was built on have not changed.

Smart marketers know you need to use a variety of tactics to get big results and huge profits.

If you’re only sending out an e-newsletter now, try sending out a print version as well.

Emails are usually most effective with your most loyal customers, but the majority of your customers won’t feel comfortable enough to buy from only an email.

So here’s what you do…

• Start off with an email.
• Follow that up with an email to a website that has a longer sales letter and a special report.
• Include the special report in your print newsletter.
• Send out the report and letter through direct mail.

These are the basics. You can use many other methods too.

It comes down to the law of multiplying. You may have got 100 sales from the first email, but by the time you follow through and send out the other materials you’ve made 1,000.

 If the product you are selling goes for $100, that’s a difference of $90,000. Of course you’ll have more expenses to produce and mail those other materials. But profit will still be much higher most of the time.

The key is to test each part of your campaign. As long as you are getting a return on your investment, from the back-end sales (or front-end, even better), you can keep sending your offer to customers and prospects.

You can do this, because you know the more you send out, the more you’re going to make.

Of course, if one media isn’t working, you either have to make changes to it or drop it.

But when something works, keep using it until it stops working.

To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing
www.relagy.com
 

Dear Friend,

Today I gave birth again. No, not to a child, but to a new business.

Over the last 6 years I worked with my business partner at the time Sam, to grow our company, kankei culture.

What a ride we had.

Through our business I worked with companies in Canada, the US, the Netherlands, Japan, China, and others.

I lived a great life and had the honor to see the inner workings of many companies from small restaurants to large global corporations with thousands of staff.

So if things were so great, why the new company, you ask?

First, I realized I love growing businesses. I learnt so much building my last company…how to attract clients, set up offices in other countries, handle business culture abroad, deal with stress and make good money…and so much more.

It was time to do it all over again.

But that wasn’t the main reason.

Second, I was losing interest in what our previous business was doing.

We specialized in international branding. A lot of our work was visual, websites, brochures, ads, etc.

My expertise though, has always been and grown more over the years in the strategy of marketing, advertising and sales.

What become clear to me was that I didn’t want to spend my time working on visual concepts that people often find very subjective…

… I wanted to continue working with business and company executives to help them make their marketing and advertising more effective, more accountable and more focused on direct results. Really, to help make more money for them and their companies.

That’s what I have been doing more and more of over the last two years…so it was time to take things to the next level.

Things progressed naturally.

Third, my business partner and I had over time naturally drifted into different areas of focus. And, as a result chosen different routes to get to different goals.

While we will still collaborate on projects together when possible. We made the choice to officially take different paths…and we are happy about this…

…looking forward to what is coming down the road.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because it has very important lessons you may want to apply to your life and career.

The take away is this: Focus on what makes you happy. Don’t spend your time doing something you aren’t enjoying. When you focus on your goals and persist to get them no matter what, you will. It’s funny how that works…but I’ve experienced that many times in my life.

So if you’re in a situation you want to improve. Take a minute now to write down what steps you could take to get you there. Then decide to do it, buckle down for the ups and downs…but with determination you will get there. No matter what people tell you…you will.

To your success,

Michael Zipursky
Relagy Marketing
www.relagy.com