Testing and Tracking Your Business
Before you launch your first advertisement or campaign, before you address your first email, you need to find answers to two very important queries.
Who is your target market?
What makes them buy or sign up with an organization?
The fastest as well as least expensive method for you to find out your answer to these questions is through testing and tracking.
Testing
The intention behind testing is to increase the rate of response to your campaign or offer. For example, you could compose a sales letter and try out different headers for the advertisement.
Often a good header can make all the impact that is needed.
Many marketers have had their sales raised by almost 200% just because they altered their headlines. Even if your product yields steady and profitable sales, you should always test and experiment.
A slight change can alter your measures from steady to overflowing!
Tracking
You must always keep a record of whatever you do in your business, not only of your profit and expenses, but also your promotional and publicity campaigns.
Let us presume you are conducting the campaign for an E-zine advertisement. The most important information that you need to keep track of are:
• Where you placed the campaign including the name of the E-zine and the date the campaign was launched
• How many subscribers the E-zine has
• Your expenses
• The number of responses the advertisement brought— once you divide this into your cost you will know how much you paid for each reaction.
• The number of sign ups you have achieved as a result of your efforts
• Name, phone number and email address for the E-zine
• The URL of the advertisement you utilized. This terribly important if you promote more than one business
• Any comments or notes that catch your attention— you should retain them, they come in handy later.
• Headlines used in the advertisement
You could also keep trace of other more significant details depending on how thorough you are willing to be.
The main thing is to study the numbers. Some ads may invoke great interest but if the interest does not extend to the product and no one buys it, then your profit is zero.
Other ads may produce a handful of click-throughs but they normally generate more sign ups. It is evident that the second ad is the better one.
You may also use other forms of advertising, for example a pay per click program, and it is absolutely essential that you keep an eye on those numbers at all times. Develop a spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel or best, write it down.
Every cent you need to spend on the marketing should be tracked continuously so that you don’t waste precious funds on profitless issues.
Also, if you have prospective clients, make sure you keep in touch. They might not be aware of your address. You must absolutely maintain tracks for all your prospects.
Do not undervalue the power of testing and tracking. If you follow these steps, you will be aware at all times of where and when you’re making money online.
