| Do you believe in testing? Do you actually test your own marketing? If not, I have a few questions for you... If you could increase your profits by 20% in 20 seconds... Would you do it? How about a 200% increase in sales from 5 minutes work? (I don't do fiction.) Date: June 14, 2004 From: Paul Myers Welcome, Do those examples seem hard to believe? Probably. Still... All of them are 100% true. John Reese made one change to a sales letter that took him about 20 seconds. (He switched the color of a small block of text from blue to red.) That simple test resulted in a 20% increase in profits from that product. Armand Morin took the header graphic off of one of his sales letters and tripled his sales from that page. That's a 200% increase, for 5 minutes work. I've seen a number of email publishers increase their click-through rates on mailings by 15-30% simply by trying out different ways of suggesting that people click on a link. Setting up that test takes a half hour, if you take your time with it. None of those tests took any money. They didn't require any extra traffic. And they're all incredibly simple to do. No rocket science here. But... Obviously, not all tests bring in those kinds of results. (That's why they call it testing, after all.) Those examples were chosen to show you the potential money you could be throwing away if you're not consistently testing and improving your business. I'm going to tell you something right up front that most people in this business won't tell you at all: I have no clue how much money you'll make with this stuff. I don't know your business, I don't know your work ethic, and I don't even know that you'll use the tools and information I'm offering you.
Something over 90% of the folks who get this package won't use it. Most won't even get around to reading the manuals. And of the ones who do try it, some will go at it randomly for a little while and then drop it. Testing can not only make you a lot of money, it can keep you from consistently making expensive mistakes. I'll give you just one example of that for right now: You may very well be throwing away nearly half of your potential income every time you send a mailing. The good news: It costs you nothing to find out and to fix it - if you know what you're looking for. (I'll tell you exactly what it is later in this letter.) Anyone who's been there will tell you: There's no secret to success. Short of incredible luck, there is only one way to build a massively successful business, online or off: Constant, gradual improvement. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. "That's obvious." Here's what's not so obvious: "Gradual" doesn't mean it has to take a long time. It doesn't. Not any more. Using the Internet, you can find out things in hours that used to take weeks. You can roll out a test that costs you little or nothing online that would cost literally tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to do offline. And you can do it as often as you like. What kind of difference could it make to your business if you could find 2, 3, 7, or even 20 tiny (or not-so-tiny) improvements in a month? You can. With enough traffic or subscribers, you might well be able to do that in a week. Not only that, it will probably take a lot less time, money and effort than you're putting in right now. All you need is the right information and the tools to make it happen. I should probably introduce myself. My name is Paul Myers. I've been publishing a business newsletter online for over 7 years now. In that time, I've looked at a lot of email and database software and read a lot of information on testing. What a mess! Sure, you could find all sorts of off-the-shelf programs for testing and tracking web stuff - but email? Forget it. Even something as simple as testing different subject lines in mail to my subscribers was a pain. The limitations of the software that was available actually added enough extra variables to make most tests invalid. Out came the notebook and the checkbook. I had the software custom programmed to do what I wanted. I designed it for my needs, as an email publisher and online marketer. I had features built in that had my programmers wondering if I'd flipped. You're gonna think they're brilliant. The conversations with some of the programmers were hysterical, by the way. My favorite... "Why would you want to randomize a database?"Poor guy thought I was making fun of him. That's how my little collection was born. Just two Windows programs and a Perl script to handle everything I needed that couldn't be bought retail. Plus, of course, a bunch of techniques for testing things via email, including a few new tricks I haven't seen anyone else use online before. I call it my "Email Toolbox." With it, you'll have the opportunity to:
Other than a simple mail merge program, which you probably already have, it includes everything you need to crank up your results faster than you likely thought possible. The toolbox contains three pieces of software that, in combination, open whole new avenues for boosting your profits. They'll make it easy for you to give yourself a raise, every single month. The first is ListRx. This is the heavy lifter. It works with text databases, so you aren't stuck with needing some expensive software or using proprietary formats. ANY database program will export to text format. (Yes, simple lists of email addresses also work. That's just a database with only one field.) ListRx will:
There are other features, but these are the main ones. If you'd like to see how easy the program is to use, you can check out the documentation here. It'll open in a new window, and is a whopping 18 pages. The second program is called Tagger. It does one thing: Lets you add fields to text databases. The key is the control it gives you over formatting those fields, and the fact that it lets you generate user IDs for your list. It also lets you add fields according to ranges in the file. Entries 1-100 (or whatever) could get one addition, entries 101-200 another, etc. Tagger makes testing different email copy factors unbelievably easy. The docs for this one are here. (Nine pages.) If you don't already have a tracker that allows you to track individual user actions, you're going to love this one. It's a Perl script that records data from the URL that was clicked on and then redirects the visitor to the desired page. Easy enough. You can use it to track all sorts of things that are Really Handy to know. For example, which ezine ad or article submission is getting you visitors. Just merge in the ezine's ID field when you send the article, and you're done. Keep tabs on which forum posts are driving traffic to your sign-up page, or which banner ad is getting the most clicks... pretty much anything that involves a URL that you control. And you can create the ID tags for these on the fly. It also makes it easy to track clicks from links in ebooks and reports, and to change the redirect in case the original page is gone or you want to send the traffic to another site. More importantly, this allows you to keep track of which specific subscribers click on which links. Would you like to be able to build a database telling you which subscribers are interested in which types of offers or products? How about being able to follow up on ads or offers in your newsletter with only the people who were interested enough to look it over the first time? Have multiple links in an email, and want to be able to target follow up based on which they looked at, without hitting the folks who weren't interested with the same message over and over? This makes it as simple as returning a phone call. But much faster. Because you're using the ID field instead of the email address, you don't have to worry about ever sending emails to someone who has unsubscribed from your list since they clicked. Sub-lists based on the subscriber's preferences, without headaches, spam complaints or having to manage subscription requests for umpteen different groups. That's powerful. Along with the software, you get two short manuals (less than 100 pages, combined) that show you the basics of how to make this all happen for you quickly, simply, and profitably. In these books, you'll discover how to:
One step at a time, you're going to see your profits and subscriber base growing significantly every month. I do need to warn you about one thing though... The first time you do a test and find something you didn't expect, or something that bumps up your income on an ongoing basis, you're gonna be hooked. And the first time you hit one of the Big Scores - the factors that make a difference of 50 or 100% or more - you're going to throw a party. Does it work every time? Can I guarantee you that every one of these tests I recommend will make a positive difference for you? Nope. Anyone who said they could would be lying. Here's the reality: On average, 3 out of 4 things you test will NOT help. In fact, one of them will actually hurt sales. That's easy enough, though - you just go back to what you were doing before and try something else. The good news is that 1 out of 4 things you test, on the average, will make a measurable positive difference for you. And it won't necessarily be the same thing that worked for the next guy in line. It's so easy and so fast to test things online that you won't even mind the ones that don't work. You can do dozens of these tests every month. If you have the subscribers and/or traffic, you can do that many in a week. Think of it this way: Imagine you're walking down a beach, looking under rocks, and you find an antique gold coin under one out of four of them. Would you complain about the rocks that were just rocks, or would you get busy turning them over faster, so you could find more of the hidden gold? That's what testing is like. And there is a lot of hidden gold out there, just waiting to be found. Pretty painless, actually. And I rather expect it will turn a profit for you the first time or two that you use it. With the difference this software and these techniques could make in your business, I could probably throw in some consulting, a few extra techniques in special report form, and some real life case studies and charge $597 for the package. All of that stuff is nice, but you don't need any consulting to make this work. It's simply not that difficult or complicated. And if I throw in too much information, you'll get stuck on reading it and never get around to doing anything with it. Besides, I don't do consulting unless the project is really interesting. It's just not what I want to do when I grow up. So, I'm keeping it simple. And dirt cheap for something that can give you a raise every month. The whole shebang is just $147. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if your first test turned up something that made you two or three times the cost of this package - every single week. It's downloadable, so you can be reading the manuals and playing with the software within minutes. You could very easily be doing your first test with this system by this time tomorrow. And like any good set of tools and skills, you'll use them over and over. My goal for you is pretty simple: I'd like to see you triple your profits per visitor or subscriber using this package. I sincerely believe that anyone who really applies these techniques consistently and intelligently can do that, and more. Again, you get:
Email is only part of the equation, of course. You can make every bit as much of an impact on your business by improving results from your web site. So, why didn't I include more of that in the books and software above? Well, why reinvent the wheel? I'm going to include a copy of a very well done manual that covers the main points of web site testing thoroughly, along with explaining a lot of the theory and science of testing. It's called "Small Changes, Big Profits." Written by Paul Hancox, it's a bit over 100 pages of solid information on cranking up your web results. There's a link in it to a very nice (and free) split-testing script that Paul wrote that'll get you started fast. If you can't increase your income from your web site by 50% or more with this over time - you probably ain't tryin'. One of the surprising things to me was how much of a difference it could make to have audio clips on a sales site. For some, it does nothing. For others, though, it can be a huge profit booster. I've seen increases up to 38%, and heard claims of of them over 100%. Audio is also a great way to add useful and relevant bonuses to your products, and that almost always increases sales. Heck, there are lots of markets out there for pure audio products. An interview a month with a niche expert, political rants and sit-down comedy. You name it, people will pay to hear it, if it's interesting or useful enough. (Hey... How about an audio blog?) And it's really simple to do. I'm going to include an MP3 player that you can use on your web site to allow your visitors to listen to an introduction, a full interview, or whatever else you feel might get them in the buying mood. Actually, I'm including two of them. One, called AudioRazor, has a great interface that allows pausing, playing, and moving back and forth in the audio. This is perfect for longer pieces, where people might want to stop and get a cup of coffee or finish listening after dinner. And the ability to move back and forth in the audio lets them take notes on what they're hearing. You supply the MP3. AudioRazor does the rest. The second is even simpler. You record your audio to your PC using the standard Windows recorder and any microphone, save the file, and drag it onto the program's interface. It converts the audio to MP3 and embeds it into a flash file that you just put into your web pages. This one is for shorter audio bits. The flash file consists of one thing: A play button. Will audio boost your sales? The only way to know is to test it. Now you can. Two of the most important things in building a responsive list are providing good information and developing the right relationship with your subscribers. To help you with that, I'm going to include an hour-long interview I did with Sadan Gurgenci, a retired direct marketing millionaire, on just those topics. In the interview, we cover quite a bit of ground. The most useful thing for your purposes is the formula for writing articles that get read. It's very straightforward, and it's not something I've written about in my newsletter or in books. So far, I've explained this only at live seminars and one rather expensive tele-class. This isn't available as a download anywhere but with this package. Try it out for 8 weeks. If you don't honestly think you can add an absolute minimum of 50% to your online profits in the first year using these techniques, just delete the software and let me know. I'll give you a full refund. No questions asked. You can keep the audio and other bonuses as my thank you for trying the system out. I think I'm pretty safe with this. I can't imagine anyone actually using these techniques and not getting a much more substantial increase than that, in less time. So - what are you waiting for? Grab your copy of the "Email Toolbox" today. I guarantee you, you'll be glad you did.  Paul Myers PS: Like I said earlier, there is only one way to build a massively successful business, online or off: Constant, gradual improvement. The only sure way down that road is testing new things on a regular basis. The "Email Toolbox" gives you everything you need. And it's backed by my personal 100%, no questions asked guarantee. PPS: I forgot to mention... Included with this offer are free updates to all the software and bonuses in the package. And I've already got programmers working on one update and two new scripts to be added later. TalkBiz, Inc 651 E 24th St Erie, PA 16503 (888) 576-1755 paul@talkbiz.com |