The Absolute Best Way to Leverage Your Business Dollars

by Mark Joyner

A stockbroker from one of the major investment companies called on a direct marketer friend of mine, and offered him a stock portfolio that was expected to yield a 16% return on investment per annum. 

The direct marketer replied, "I'm presently involved with an investment vehicle that yields 100% to 400% ROI per month. When you can match these returns, come back and see me, and we'll talk." 

Was my friend lying, or is there really such an investment vehicle? Yes there is. It's called… advertising. 

Don't get me wrong. Advertising, much like other high-yield investment vehicles, can also be a high-risk proposition that can potentially bleed you to death. But when done right, it beats any investment vehicle in existence! 

Advertising is the absolute best way to leverage your business dollars - but only when you do 2 important things: 

1) Track results. 
2) Test continually. 

At the mere mention of tracking and testing, most marketers run the opposite direction -- fast! Don't do that just yet. I'm going to show you how tracking and testing can boost your income by 50, 100, even 500%. These tandem concepts can literally make or break your business -- and that's no exaggeration. 

There is a marketing axiom that states that the best way to distinguish a successful marketer from an unsuccessful one is this: The successful marketer tracks and tests. The unsuccessful one doesn't. That ought to give you some clue. 

Although they are inextricably related, these two powerful concepts require separate discussion in order for you to capitalize on their respective benefits: 

1) Track your results.

John Wanamaker, the famous merchant who helped usher in the age of the "department store" in the early 20th century, was known to have said, "I know that half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; but I can never find out which half." 

This is the dilemma of most marketers. The majority of marketers just run ads haphazardly -- then sit back and see what happens. They never really find out where their business is coming from. So they continue to shoot blindly in the dark and hope for the best. 

When viewed objectively, it's easy to see that this is the most foolish thing in the world to do. And yet marketers do it everyday. Why? 

Because they don't have time. Most marketers are aware of the concept of tracking, but refuse to do it because they consider it tedious or cumbersome. Nowadays, there are several software programs and services available that will allow you to track your advertising campaigns automatically and without any hassle. 

2) Test continually. 

Eugene M. Schwartz, author of "Breakthrough Advertising" once said, "There are no answers in marketing except test answers." 

Testing is a scientific approach to direct-response selling. The entire rationale behind testing is not to risk a lot of money or resources until you have a reasonable certainty of a campaign's success. 

The thing to remember is that it isn't you who decides what works -- no matter how many years of experience you have in marketing. Neither is it you who determines the best-performing headline, offer, guarantee or price. Nothing is true until the tests say it is true.

It has been proven that one headline can outpull another by as much as 1750%, even when all other aspects of both ads are identical! The only way to discover this is through testing. 

Example: If you have a large mailing list, you may want to conduct an AB split test. This is accomplished by taking your ad and e-mailing it to a sample of, say, 5,000 names (Group A). Simultaneously, you would take the exact same ad and change just one variable, such as the headline, and e-mail it to a second sample of 5,000 names (Group B). Track the results using ROIbot, and determine which performed better. Do this as often as necessary until you come up with a conclusive winner. Roll out the best-performing ad to the rest of the list in order to maximize the returns. 

In order for testing to be scientific, it is important that you test only one variable at a time. You can test headlines, offers, guarantees, copy appeals, prices, offers, mailing lists, advertising media … and any other variable that has a direct influence on the response to an ad or mailing. 

Persistence pays off huge dividends in testing. You have to be willing to try out different things, and realize that most of the things you try will fail. Testing is an effective secret weapon that permits you to strike out 9 out of 10 times, and still make a lot of money on a single homerun. 

If you keep at it, you are likely to find a winning campaign that outpolls all others by a huge margin. When you do find that winner which, in marketing terms is referred to as the "control piece", you can run it far and wide and be assured of phenomenal returns. 

For example, you might presently be running an ad that's pulling a 2% click-to-sale conversion rate. You figure since 2% is a decent response rate, you're earning a net profit of $2000, and your advertising cost is $1000, you can't complain. Why, that's a 100% return on your advertising investment, after all. But wait! Through testing, if you hit upon an ad that pulls a 4% response rate, you're earning a net profit of $4,000. But since your advertising is a fixed cost of $1000, that means you increased the return on your advertising investment from 100% to 400%! 

A small difference in response rate could mean a gigantic difference in your bottomline. Do you see now why advertising can give the absolute best leverage on your business dollar? This is absolutely guaranteed if you take the time to track and test. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  

Mark Joyner is widely recognized as one of the top Internet Marketing experts in the world. He recently retired as CEO of Aesop Corporation, the makers of  the famous ROIbot Tracker. He is the author of 1001 Killer Internet Marketing Tactics and the wildly popular Confidential Internet Intelligence Manuscript. Using just one of the techniques he reveals in this top secret report is guaranteed to increase your Internet sales by 32%! Before he left, Mark rounded up 14 of his fellow Marketing Masters in a legendary last, tell all seminar and now this Ultimate Marketing Seminar is available to you on 15 DVDs. Click here to learn more...