So you’ve spent a bunch of time and effort to organize an effective test. After identify numerous things to test out, you have a well optimized landing page. And you have learned some very interesting things about what makes your customers take action. Your results show it! Good job!

So now what? How long are your test results good for? Well, you should plan on testing some new ideas every so often, because there is almost always room to improve. The answer to this question is highly dependent on your market and your offer. But unless your response rates suddenly take a nosedive, you probably don’t have too much to worry about.

Certainly, many things happen in the marketplace that can effect your response, both positively and negatively. If there is a shift in the market landscape that will stick around, you should definitely plan on doing some more testing. Some examples of this could be new laws passed which affect your product, major lawsuits, or natural disasters. If everything remains “status quo,” there is a good chance your response will remain relatively static.

Here’s something to consider testing… those form submit buttons. You know, the thing that customers actually click on to send in their information, order, or sign up for your newsletter.

You see them on on the web in all shapes and sizes, not to mention what words are used on them. Non-marketing type web designers usually stick with the default text- “Submit.” Does this have an effect on peoples likelihood of actually pressing them? Only testing will tell you whether it makes a difference or not.

Things you could test:

• Button Text… “Submit” vs. “Subscribe” for example
• HTML button vs. Graphic Image
• Where on the page the button appears
• Action vs. Passive text
• and many other ideas

The success metric:
Determining the best submit button takes time, and the metric you will want to watch to determine success or failure is pretty obvious- number of forms submitted!

Introducing AdBright – The Internet’s Ad Marketplace. I read about these guys in this mornings Wall Street Journal. Looks like a powerful alternative to Google for the small advertiser. I am going to give them a try and report here what my results are. Stay tuned…

I am often asked what has the biggest influence on the success of a landing page. Invariably it comes down to the headline. With this single line of text, you can:

• introduce your customers to your offer
• intrigue them
• turn them off
• qualify them
• get them excited
• make them sad
• create desire
• create demand
• hook your customers
• scare your customers
• and many more things
  

What to test

What your headline says flows into the rest of the offer. But without a captivating headline, your chances of actually getting your prospects to read the rest of your offer diminish drastically. Things you could test?

• Word Length
• Style
• Aggressiveness
• Font Size
• Appeal Type
• Color
• Font Face
• and more…

What about your success metric?

A successful headline will not automatically close the deal. Your indication of success might be sales revenue, or leads generated. Or maybe not. Maybe just time spent on the site. Are you “captivating” the audience? That might be the best measure.

Are you thinking about doing some testing on your site to try and improve your profitability?

Choosing when to test is important… After answering how and what to test, the question of when is the next most important. Seasonal fluctuations surrounding the holidays can have a major influence on web users.

Many sites note a significant drop in traffic during November and December, while retail sites often see the opposite.

Most people are just too busy to bother with the internet. Think about it, they are out shopping, standing in line, fighting traffic, travelling, spending time family and old friends, etc. Not sitting at the computer.Even if they do spot something online they’re interested in, chances are quite good that they will put off their action until “after the holidays.”

For you retailers, folks are much quicker to buy and make decisions during the “mad dash” to buy presents prior to the holidays. This is hardly an accurate representation of what your customers will be like during the other 300 days of the year.

These are a few of the reasons why testing during the holiday months is tough, and make it hard to get an accurate picture of what motivates your customers. You might find that things which work during this period actually hurt you during the rest of the year.

The good news is, that it’s now January 2005, and things are rapidly getting back to normal. This means you have 5 solid months to test until the next problem area comes along… summer!