Testing

We've mentioned testing several times in this blog post, and it's vital that you test to understand the behaviour of your audience and what works best for them. Here are our tips to help you develop a better testing strategy.

139. AB test often

Try to make testing apart of all campaigns. The more you test, the more data you'll gather, and the more you'll know about your audience.

140. Ask different people for ideas

Marketing doesn't have a monopoly on the best ideas. This is particularly true when testing. It's always worth asking other people, particularly the Sales team, for their ideas and trying them out. Even if you don't think an idea will work, it can be worth trying: you might be wrong, but even if you're right you might learn something from the test.

141. Have a plan for testing

When you run tests there should always be a reason for doing it. Each test should be designed to answer a question or find something out. Make sure you have a clear plan for your testing. It will not only make the process easier, but it will help you analyse the data at the end of the test.

142. Never think you have reached perfection

It's easy to think you've understood your audience and have the perfect campaign, but people change over time. Even if your campaign is performing brilliantly, it's important to keep testing as attitudes and behaviour can change. You might even be able to improve the performance of what you think is the “perfect” campaign.

143. Remember different personas respond differently

When testing it's important to make sure you run separate tests for different personas. Different personas have different needs and interests, and will not behave in the same way. Each of those personas is also subject to change.

144. Measure quality as well as quantity when testing

Don't be a slave to the numbers when you are testing. Simply counting the number of leads might not be the best measure of the performance of your lead generation campaign. So include qualitative metrics that measure how good the leads are, as well as volume metrics that count the numbers.

145. Focus on the outcome, not on vanity metrics

With any campaign it's important to focus on the impact to the business wherever possible by measuring the value of business done with the leads you generate. Even if you can't, use metrics that assess the quality of the lead. Relying on vanity metrics like impressions, clickthrough’s and even form fills can be misleading.