Testing versions of your latest marketing email with a small sample to find out which version draws the most positive response is a time-honored practice. Testing your email’s subject line, graphics, calls to action and other elements gives your marketing team valuable data for future campaigns and helps you refine your strategy for marketing to each audience segment. As important as email testing is, it’s only part of the bigger picture.
What about testing banner ads, landing pages, gated content, home pages and site layout? With anonymous browser cookies that let you deliver customized pages to visitors, you put the power of testing and refining your marketing message to work for your website, display ads, content and visual elements. Here are some possibilities for A/B testing that take your marketing beyond email.
Landing Pages
What calls to action really resonate with your prospects? Should you invite visitors to buy now or to check out on your buttons? For that matter, should you use a button at all, or are you better off with a link? When you’re able to test different versions of your landing page, you’ll learn what makes your audience respond. Marketing automation software can perform the test, track results and deliver the optimal version of your landing pages for you.
Forms
Filling out forms can be a surprisingly large sticking point for prospects as they move through your sales pipeline. A form that contains too little content doesn’t give you enough information about your lead, but a too-long form can drive them away before they’ve had a chance to download your latest white paper or complete their order. Test the length, layout and details of your forms with A/B testing before you decide on a final format, and you’ll have significantly better response rates to them.
Website Content
Successful sites have their own consistent, recognizable voice, but can your visitors pick yours out of the general buzz? Testing different headlines and sub-headers, switching your tone from businesslike to humorous or creative, dividing your content into bullet lists, and varying the length of your copy on each page are some possibilities. Images also have a dramatic impact on how people perceive your site, so switch it up and see what makes your visitors respond well. As with your landing page, you need software that can serve different pages for comparison; marketing automation is the solution here. Once you find the voice your customers want to hear, you can strike the right tone in future conversations with them.
Navigation and Layout
Understanding how people interact with your site is critical to placing the elements you want them to see in the best places. Changing from a vertical orientation to a horizontal bar with drop-down menus or vice-versa alters more than the look of your site; it also changes how your prospects navigate within it. For mobile users, site layout is even more important, and testing responsive web designs could lead to a major revenue boost as you reach mobile visitors in ways your old site’s design couldn’t.
Once you start thinking about marketing elements to test, you’ll discover just how much little changes can mean to your bottom line.
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