Q: What are the biggest secrets for successful Internet marketing?
A: The answer probably has to do with a personal experience. Some believe that it is all about content. They say that "content is king" – meaning that providing lots of valuable information on your site is a great strategy to generate awareness, interest and new business. Others believe that "if content is king, context is queen!" They argue that content becomes much more relevant if we better understand our audience and their intentions.
In this column, we have been advocating that success on the Internet is all about viral marketing and word of mouth. However, more people like e-marketing consultant Dragan Varagic from the Internet Group argue that "the three biggest Internet marketing secrets are – testing, testing and testing! The more I know about the Internet, the more I realize that we should never take anything for granted, but rather test and continuously improve everything."
Q: What is so important about testing?
A: Testing is a great way not only to quickly evaluate our existing programs but also to discover new opportunities. The Internet provides a great way to measure marketing return on investment. John Wanamaker's popular saying – "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half" – doesn't have to be true any longer. We now have the tools to measure, test and improve our marketing programs.
Q: What should can be tested?
A: Anything from the first business idea or concept to a product prototype, micro-website or even a phrase used in your marketing communication. Andreas Schleich, from Vancouver's digital marketing agency SnapTech, says that Internet marketing professionals "literally live by testing" today. His focus is testing various elements in marketing campaigns, such as different online advertising messages or different versions of web pages, in order to convert prospects to leads and leads to customers.
Q: Should testing be part of the overall marketing strategy?
A: Yes, testing and experimenting should be central to your overall strategy. Consider testing things much earlier during the product development cycle. Learn from Google, the world champion of beta testing. Google's current approach is called "agile creativity" (see www.google.com/think/playbooks/agile-creativity.html) and it suggests that you "move fluidly from idea to experimentation, getting to the 'build' faster even if it is buggy or seems unfinished. Launch prototypes of executions that are 80% finished to assess marketability and see their real-time impact (or lack thereof)."
Q: What are the best online tools for testing?
A: Here are a few tools to begin:
- Test demand for various products or services by using the keyword popularity tool;
- Test the conversion rates of various online campaigns by using the conversion tool built into Google AdWords;
- Compare how different web pages perform by using Google's content analytics;
- Test the profitability of online marketing by using the website optimization calculator on Clickz; and
- Test the conversion rates of different ads or website landing pages by using any A/B split test, such as loweryourbidprice.com/splittest/.
