When it comes to marketers there are two distinct types in this world: The two percenters would easily spend their days with A/B testing all day if they could. And the other 98 percent of marketers who are out there would probably moan and groan whenever they hear the topic brought up. The second of the group makes up a majority of marketers in the world and are always saying, “I know I should be testing more.”

Then you may hear them say… “But it’s difficult and it takes so much time. I think I know the answer anyway.”

If You Want Success Be the 2% Marketer and Always Test

Unfortunately is it isn’t usually enough to make a good movie out of the saying. But it’s a message that needs to be conveyed and is preached by successful marketers everywhere.

Along with the message are five other rules which real marketers always follow along with constant testing. When these rules are broken down they seem tedious and overwhelming but they are essential.

The First Rule – Plan Ahead:

So you’ve set up and written an awesome email follow up series and went through the pain of segmenting your list, you have an attractive squeeze page with a high conversion rate and are ready to rock. But in the final hour of launch you hear the dreaded words… “Maybe we should test all of this first.” Ugghhh is all you hear after that.

No marketer who is sane would want to adjust a campaign once it’s been completed at the last minute. Testing takes a lot of time, so it’s very important to incorporate testing into the building phase of a project or campaign. You need to be testing from the get go.

The Second Rule – Take Your Time to Learn Effectively:

While this is obvious to most, if you’re not willing to analyze your test so you can learn from them, than what’s the point of testing? The most effective way to learn with the method of A/B testing is to test a single variable inside the group of a large population in order to gain the best assurance and understanding that you’re accurately calculating your results.

If you really want to perform multivariate testing save time than get ready to hire someone with a doctorate in analytics and statistics to calculate and track all of your numbers.

From an outsider’s standpoint to your objective, when you’re always performing test, you don’t have to overdo it, you can take your time and learn slowly. It’s impossible to learn everything from one campaign. It’s all about learning a little bit from a bunch of them.

The Third Rule – Only Measure What’s Important:

Most marketers measure the clicks and opens. Those aren’t the end goals though are they? The real numbers that matter are the conversions.

It’s because of this that the best thing you can do is to find a tool which helps you to track specific user activities. You can use these specialized tools to track the actions which lead to the conversion. While it’s important to know the opens and clicks, it’s more important to know everything from start to finish.

Get your purpose and goals clear and then test for those.

The Fourth Rule – Take Time When Testing:

One of the worst things you can do when doing an A/B test is to assume that you will get the results fast. Paying attention to only the short term goals negates a huge portion of your audience.

If you have a newsletter that is sent out every time you get a lead, you can start with A/B testing that sends out different variations of the follow up email. But you will need to test for the results over an extended period of time; a month or so would probably suffice. This way you can determine how your subscribers responded to two different emails.

This also applies when lead nurturing, where each of your subscribers is on a different level of engagement and receives different letters. You can also track the results of the various emails over time here as well.

The Fifth Rule – Talk Testing

Everyone in your business or on your team can learn from the testing that you perform. It’s because of this that you need share your results to help others learn and gain insight from you and you from them. Being a marketer puts you closer to the customer and their needs than nearly anyone else in the company. This means that you are in the optimal position to help spread your insight as to what the customers thinking.

With your knowledge, opinion and facts from the testing in your repertoire, people will pay attention when you speak. Your voice should be heard on a regular basis and you could even include your findings in meetings on a regular basis.

Always put testing to good use and hold true to the attitude that everything is testable. This can apply to everything from headlines to content, and even the time you put up post on social media and sending out emails. The list could go on forever but you understand by now. Over time the aim is to learn everything you can about every area through testing to get the most success from your marketing strategies.

What it comes down to is taking the time to test and there is always something that can be tested.

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