There are two main components to any undertaking, marketing related or not, that determine if the endeavor will be successful: Research and Testing. All too often we see b2b lead generation campaigns falter because someone jumped the gun or failed to refine their processes until they were running at optimal efficiency. Today, I?m going to talk about the importance of marketing testing and how you can immediately improve your marketing campaigns through simple tests.

Sales lead generation is one of the more interesting sub-industries simply because things are constantly changing. New ideas, processes and technology make b2b lead generation an evolving science. It is because things are changing that, we as seo marketing professionals, must constantly test our work to make sure we are getting the best possible gains from our efforts. Marketing testing is a great notion but is wasted if you don?t have tangible methods of testing.

Marketing testing protocol contains 6 major parts: the question, testing variables, metrics, validation, results and interpretation. You should establish a plan for these six components before any actual marketing test takes place. The question, pertains to what you hope to answer i.e. what conversion beckon will produce a better click through rate? Ask yourself what you are hoping to achieve to create a primary or secondary market research question.

In the testing variables phase you want to clearly describe what exactly you are testing. Make sure to include what will become your variables as well as establish a control sample. For example if you are testing a new landing page to see which design works better, you need to establish various options to test. Option one could be a large table with details on the offer. Option 2 could be a small table with less detail. Option 3 could contain no table and only an offer and a form to fill out. The key is to test each one against one another and establish a clear winner.

The third marketing testing protocol is metrics. Metrics are considered the, ?what? phase in a marketing test. You need to determine specifically what you are going to measure in your marketing testing tests. This could be a number of different things from click through rate, conversion rate, number of times a whitepaper has been downloaded or the number of clicks on a flash piece to an a special offer. It really is up to you what you are going to test and what type of direct marketing strategy you are using.

The fourth testing phase is called validation. In the validation phase you are going to determine various factors regarding the actual marketing test itself. Such factors include the sample size needed to perform an accurate test, the time frame required to gather a sizeable test sample, the length of the test itself and any outside influences that might be a factor during a seo marketing test. Some items to take note of are selection effect (a biased sample), using skewed analytics software (using analytics software which interferes with the code of a website thus making the webpage display incorrectly) and the timing effect (running a direct marketing test during peak months or slow months or running a test on a weekend vs. a weekday.)

The fifth phase in marketing testing is the results phase. The results phase is strightforward, it is important to keep accurate data throughout the duration of the test. The last phase of testing is interpretation. It is during the interpretation phase of a test where the most insight can be gained; not only for the specific marketing test but also for future tests. Notes and records should be filed away so that you can learn from your experiment and build upon it at a later time.

It is crucial to keep in mind regarding testing in sales lead generation is to never stop testing. A common mistake seo marketing professionals make is to test once and then run with the results. Once you run a marketing test and achieve optimal results you should take your best results and see if you can top them. Many times if you run a marketing test three or four different times you will see better results than you previously thought you would. With some practice in testing you will start to see better results with your marketing campaigns.

Using articles in your internet marketing can be a long lasting, low cost source of visitors to your sales funnel. If you approach it from the standpoint of attraction marketing, the process can reap results that are far greater than just trying to get links and traffic with keywords and one size fits all content.

Here are a few rules-of-thumb to start out right.

Rule Number One: Lead with Value First and Foremost

Taking the approach as an researcher is the idea. Ask yourself, ” If I was looking for how to fix a refrigerator, do I want a site with the word refrigerator plastered a few times in it, or an article that gives me the knowledge to fix the refrigerator?” It’s the same principle for any marketing. In article marketing though, keywords are what the search engines are looking for. It is not really what the reader is looking for, only the tool they use to get there.
So, give the reader what they are looking for. Actually, give them more than what they are looking for. This will build a relationship in which they will come back for more or trust you enough to see what you have to offer. In the long term, this will pay off huge!

Rule Number Two: Get the Most Out of the Article Submission

For your visitors to each your site, they usually did a keyword search. Therefore, relevant keywords need to be place throughout the headline and the body of the article. Don’t overdo it though. Search engines are getting more efficient all the time, so make sure you are putting in keywords that add to the value of the article. Attraction marketers should have no problem with this. If it’s about value, you will be doing this already. Anchor links may be used too, some directories don’t support these though.
Remember, personal branding is essential in attraction marketing. Therefore, your articles, suggestions, and resources all reflect on you. The value you offer will influence the response of your list.

Rule Number Three: Refer to Number One and ONLY Offer Relevant Content

Relevant content will be of value and will reward the visitor for clicking on your site. The chances of having an article publisher promote and use your articles is far greater when you do this. You may hit the jack pot with one of these publishers having your article in front of a hundred thousand readers. It is a matter of doing the same work and getting incredible results or doing it the other way and getting visitors that leave your page wondering what you were writing about. That can be very damaging in the long run.

If you keep in mind that you want to develop a relationship with the reader, not trick them into going to your site, this will all come naturally. Remember, attraction based marketing done right requires value. Don’t skimp on it. There are some tips for inserting targeted keywords into articles to optimize the page. Those will be covered in another article. For more free info on article marketing and other low cost lead generation, click low cost lead generation.

Shane Smith
Online Wealth Mentor
812 287 8921
http://www.ShaneSmithOnline.com

I’ve known Mack Michaels for a while.

He’s  the type person that loves sharing excellent content with you.  He knows his internet marketing business inside and out.  I know.  I’ve been watching his videos lately and I must admit, he knows his stuff.

Recently, he released a series of videos where he takes  you inside his private Money Makers Coaching Club, but he put those videos on his sales page. You may like to check it out and read the whole page if you want, but that’s not necessary. If you want to grab FREE, superb video content, that can help your MLM lead generation efforts, go to video #2 of his sales page.

It’s a 24 minute one that covers in detail, what he called his:

Promoting Secrets

1. Know What to Promote
2. Know Where to Promote
3. Know How to Promote

I’m assuming you like good freebies like this, that’s why I wanted to pass it along to you before he takes them from the page.

Click here to go to that page:  Inside Maverick Money Makers