[thelist] Online Marketing Resource

Martin Burns martin at easyweb.co.uk
Fri Jan 7 19:33:59 CST 2011


On 6 Jan 2011, at 21:28, john at johnallsopp.co.uk wrote:

> Fred, I'm a scientist at heart, so I like to test everything and back up
> my decisions with evidence


First step to becoming a successful (and good) marketeer is to think that way.

It starts from David Ogilvy's line: "I know 50% of my marketing effort is wasted. I wish I knew which 50%"

I wouldn't actually start with online marketeers, I'd start with good offline direct marketeers. Start with Drayton Bird:
http://www.draytonbird.com/
specifically his "Commonsense Direct Marketing" (which I now see has an 'and digital' update).

As Joel says, ensure that you do the basics of ensuring that you're building an appealing product before you try selling it. Again, David Ogilvy "A gifted product beats a gifted pen". Actually, research shows that your promotional materials are one of the *least* impactful variables - many marketeers won't tell you that.

Then you need some way of tracking leads->prospects->customers back to specific efforts and measuring it in terms that matter. Cost per sale, cost per response, cost per new customer all good metrics. Remember your stats about margins of error & confidence levels.

Then finally you're in the position to start with the science.

Put together your best shot at gaining your target measure (ie new sales, responses, customers) and measure the results.

Then start changing variables (one at a time) - product, targeting, timing (and then eventually creative) and do smallscale tests. Measure the results each time. If your new experiment (challenger) beats your previous best combination (champion) to a level of significance, it becomes your new champion to beat. Keep going - never stop. 

Then remember that the hard and expensive bit is gaining new customers. Life is much easier and cheaper in retaining and selling to your existing ones. The most important retention message is always "Thankyou!"

Here endeth the 3 minute lesson

Cheers
Martin
DipIDM 

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