Check out what Clayton Makepeace and company had to say about Google’s new tool.
Let me know what you think!!!
-RichBum

Is This Part Of Google’s Evil Plot
To Rule The World –
Or Just An Amazing Free Tool
That Can Make You Big Money?

Posted by: Daniel Levis
March 19, 2008

Issue #377

In this issue:

How to harness sophisticated multivariate testing on your website for FREE …
The brain dead simple way to incrementally improve your website conversion and grow your opt-in list faster than you ever dreamed possible …
How to dramatically increase your test win rate, and skyrocket your sales …
Plus more!
Dear Web Business Builder,

A while back I did a quick review of Google’s new Website Optimizer multivariate testing tool. About a year’s passed, I’ve had a chance to put the tool though its paces, and I thought it might prove useful to revisit the topic …

Actually, I’ve deliberately created a “sandbox” where I’ve been playing around with all kinds of stuff, tweaking and testing different copy ideas, design strategies, and so forth.

Website Optimizer is a fantastic tool that you can use to incrementally improve the performance of your online campaigns. You can use it at each step of your process flow to improve your conversion. And it works no matter where you source your traffic. It’s hard to believe it’s free.

For example, you can use it to improve your squeeze page conversion by rotating a number of different web page variables. Not only can you see which variables impact your conversion positively, you can see which combinations are working best.

Let me illustrate how this works for you with an actual experiment I’ve got running right now …

First, I have what Google calls my “original”. This is the web page that I initially designed for this lead generation campaign. The page consists of a pre-head, a headline, a sub-head, a call to action, name and e-mail address fields, a survey field, a submit button, and a privacy statement.

Next, I decide what I’m going to test: in this case the headline, the survey field (with and without), and a voice over (with and without). So I install a few snippets of HTML code on my “original” web page, and then add a variation for each of these three elements in the Website Optimizer console.

And voila, as if by magic, Google rotates all eight possible combinations, and tracks the results.

Here’s what the reports look like.

Three elements, with two variables each (2×2×2), equal eight possible combinations. When you hover your mouse over the hypertext for each combination at the left of the report, a little text box pops up telling you which elements make up each combination. If you click on the links, Website Optimizer displays what your website visitors actually see.

The real beauty of this is that when you complete an experiment, declare a control, and begin a new experiment, Website Optimizer automatically archives everything for you.

You can come back and look at how each variation performed over the course of numerous experiments, and actually see what these pages looked like. They’re all right there for you, conveniently organized by date. And all you ever have to mess with is one single page on your website.

Website Optimizer also shows you your variation results side by side, so you can see how they performed head to head in isolation. Here’s the report …

Testing is about trying to minimize guesswork in your marketing, so you can continually increase your conversions and the amount you can afford to spend to acquire new leads and customers. But what do you test?

Everyone knows you need to test your headlines, and your offers, and your order devices, and those kinds of things. But how do you know what kind of changes have a chance of giving you a significant lift in conversion? Guessing can be costly. If you guess wrong, your test is going to lower your conversion, not raise it.

The solution? Let your prospects tell you what to test. Survey your traffic at the point of impact. If you analyze both the quality and quantity of the responses, looking for emotional hot buttons and points of intense interest that you can cycle back into your copy, you’ll know exactly what to test. Use the data to optimize your squeeze page and the subsequent pages in the campaign flow where you’re liquidating your traffic costs.

It’s a numbers game …

Traffic gravitates to the highest bidder. And the bidder with the best sales process can afford to pay the highest bid. More traffic, equals faster test results. Faster test results means higher conversion. Higher conversion means more traffic. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Most people buying traffic are playing what I like to call guess marketing. They think people buy for the same reasons they do. Usually they’re wrong. Some test, but just pull tests out of their hats, again, based on their own reasoning. And often those tests fail to result in measurable improvements.

The best possible thing you can do is to take your own ideas (and your client’s ideas if you’re writing for someone else) about how to sell whatever you’re selling and throw them out the window. You’ve got to get out of your own head. You’ve got to find out what people really want … what their questions are … and what problems they’re desperate to overcome. And the very best time to find out is at the exact moment they encounter your campaign.

That’s why I run a survey along side my opt-in fields on my squeeze pages. I ask people to share their biggest goal, problem, or question about the outcome I’m selling. This tells me a lot about their dominant desires, fears, frustrations, beliefs, and level of awareness and sophistication about the product on offer.

In my sandbox, I’m selling a business opportunity. By asking people what their biggest goals are, I’m eliciting mental pictures in their minds. I’m inspiring their active imagination about the exciting new life they’re trying to obtain. Their feedback tells me what kinds of promises are likely to resonate with them. It allows me to paint a compelling picture of desire.

With this particular campaign, my original headline reads “The Truth About Making Money Without Money — FAST!” It’s a nice broad catchall that pulls nicely.

To try and beat it, I pulled out my survey results and started counting the various goals people had filled out in the form. Quite a few people are talking about wanting to get out of debt. Others want to be financial free. Others detest their jobs and want to be their own boss. Do you think these might make good headline ideas?

I’m testing “Sign Up Today, Quit Your Dead End Job Next Month, REALLY …” and it’s pulling a little stronger than my original. Next I’ll test “Vaporize Crippling Debt And Become Financially Free With Your Very Own Home-Based Business … It’s Easier Than You Think!”

These are not flashes of creative copywriting genius. They are simply promises that fit the dominant drama that’s going on inside people’s heads.

I’m also eliciting negatives. They’re telling me what’s wrong with their life currently. Kids are a significant recurring theme. People feel that between commuting an hour or more back and forth to work … putting in a full day on the job … and then coming home dead tired, they’re missing out on family life, not spending enough time with their kids, and so forth.

They’re also telling me what’s wrong with the solutions they’ve already encountered (objections). There is massive skepticism. Many are afraid of getting ripped off, or becoming involved in some kind of fraudulent business.

I might have guessed these things were on people’s minds without a survey, but I would have had no idea of their relative importance. To address them, I added a voice over variation that plays automatically when my squeeze page comes up.

Does something so simple as asking your prospects what’s on their mind at the point of impact, and then entering the conversation work? The proof, as they say, is in the pudding …

The squeeze page variation that’s pulling best is the one with the headline sourced from the survey … with the voice over that specifically addresses the concerns ferreted out in the survey … and as you might have guessed, without the survey.

Yes the survey does tend to decrease response a little, but it’s well worth it.

As you can see from the below report, my probable new control (Combination 7) is performing 33.5% better than the original. And the original was already doing great. (Remember this is stone cold traffic coming straight in from Google in one of the most hotly contended markets you can imagine.)

Many marketers would be happy to get these kinds of numbers mailing their own lists. And you don’t have to be a brilliant copywriter to get ‘em. You just need to find out what’s on people’s minds when they land at your website, and cycle that intelligence back into your copy.

Put this brilliant flash of the blindingly obvious to work in your marketing — with the help of automation tools like Website Optimizer — and get ready for hyper-growth!

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

www.MakepeaceTotalPackage.com

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 10:23 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.