The Internet marketing process can be likened to a chain composed of many individual links. The success of your entire marketing process will only be as strong as the weakest link in your marketing chain. Today we are looking at one of the links in the process… the sales landing page.

 

“THE SAGA OF THE SALES LANDING PAGE
 THAT IS NEVER FINISHED”

 

I have been considered to be a “top dog” sales copywriter, writing high converting sales copy for over 30 years now. Therefore… because of my reputation, when some new clients receive my finished copy they sometimes assume that all they have to do is to post it on the internet… and they will then be automatically on their way to becoming millionaires. Unfortunately, in the real world, business just does not work that easily. If it did, we would all wind up being a Donald Trump or a Warren Buffett.

 

Because I wrote the page, my clients now have a very good start… probably a better start than 95% of the other people first putting sales pages up on the internet… but they are far from being on their way to becoming millionaires yet. What I wrote for them is only a start in the chain of events necessary to lead to their success.

 

It can be likened to the owner of a top horseracing stable who made sure that the very young horse that they just purchased as a future racehorse came from the best of championship bloodlines on the planet. History has shown that the pony therefore, has a great start, and a much better winning potential than all the others… but must still be worked with, extremely hard, in order to become a champion.

 

I meet too many internet marketers who incorrectly feel that once I have written a landing page, sales page, sales letter, squeeze page, etc. for their product or service and send it to them… they feel that it is then permanently “etched in stone”. They feel that the way that I send the page to them is the exact way it must stay forever thereafter… some people never even consider changing a word. They plan to leave it on the internet forever, just the way that I send it to them. They don’t seem to have a clue how to turn their top blood lined “race horse” into its full potential as a world class champion.

 

Nothing can be further from the reality of how successful internet marketing works.

The people who truly desire to grow their business on the internet should consider what I have crafted for them, and sent to them, as just “the starting point” to their success, not the “finishing point”.

 

I am going to let you in on the secrets of how, and why, some internet marketers build a very profitable internet business… whose incomes grow beyond your wildest dreams… and why some internet marketers sales never seem to grow past making just a handful, or two, of extra dollars.

 

As an example… let me show you how many of my highly professional… highly successful… internet marketing clients operate. Some professional internet marketing clients of mine have… started out with just one product… grown to generating multi million dollar annual revenues from the internet. Some of them have grown to having hundreds of different products… with hundreds of individual internet sales/landing pages. How did they get there, when some others can’t seem to get even one product selling successfully? The reason is very simple… they work very hard at it, just as you must work constantly to make any other business successful. Business (including internet marketing) is not a spectator sport.

 

Starting right from the point that they receive my copy written page… the true marketing professionals always considers that sales/landing page, etc. is a “fluid”, constantly changing, “work in progress”. It’s always a work in progress to them. As far as they are concerned, it is never finished. The real professional marketers continue to keep sharpening the sales/landing page… after it is up on the internet and selling. They are never satisfied with it. In their eyes, it can always be better, no matter how well it is doing. They are always trying to sharpen it… to make it better… to squeeze more sales out of it. They never guess, and they never trust any hunches or opinions (not even their own, or mine)… they test everything.

 

The way you should do this is to… install the page that I wrote for you on the internet, and start causing traffic to flow to it. Over a period of time observe what the pages conversion rate is (the percentage of people who land on the page, who buy (or take whatever action was asked of them)… expressed as a conversion rate percentage). In other words, if for every 100 people landing on the page, 5 buy… the pages conversion rate is expressed as 5%. Whatever your conversion rate turns out to be… be it a low .005%, or an amazing 90%... your perpetual goal from that point in time on… is to never be satisfied with the results… to keep actively working on increasing that conversion rate, no matter how good it is. That conversion rate increasing process never stops. It’s what separates the winners from the also ran’s, the internet marketing puppies from the top dogs.

 

When you are ready to start doing that… go to Google's Website Optimizer… www.google.com/websiteoptimizer. They have a very simple method for “split testing”… it’s even simple for a total novice.

 

Following GOOGLE Website Optimizer instructions… you upload TWO versions of the same landing page… each exactly identical to the other with ONLY ONE VARIABLE between the two pages (in this particular example case, let’s start testing with the headline) different in each of the two landing pages being split tested... the rest of each page is EXACTLY the same as the other. What we are going to test in this specific test is which of two possible headlines leads to the most conversions. In internet marketing we never guess at anything, we find out exactly what produces best by split testing, guessing is for amateurs, not professionals. The prospects landing on each of the two pages being split tested will “vote” which headline is best for this specific landing page. They vote with their orders. The headline (page) that gets the most conversions is the best because everything else on the page was EXACTLY the same. It is very important to test only one variable (in this case just the headline) during each split test.

 

There is more sophisticated software available that will let us even test several different headlines (or whatever element we are testing), on several different versions of the same landing page, at the same time.

In spite of the common misconception, split testing can be accomplished rather quickly, easily, and inexpensively... it’s not rocket science. A short split test of perhaps 100 “conversions” is usually enough to clearly see the results that we need. If you have a bigger budget, you might push that many conversions to your page in only a day (or even a few hours in some cases). If your budget is tighter, or the specific topic, or keyword, generates fewer hits… you might have to spread out the same amount of hits over a week, or two, or even longer. You can then set up AdWords to automatically “split test for you… automatically sending half (every other prospect) of the “clicking” prospects to one of the pages you are split testing… and the other half of the “clicking” prospects to the 2nd landing page with the other headline that you are testing.

 

Since the prospects sent to each test page were selected totally randomly from the exact same source (every other person clicking on the exact same worded AdWords ad copy, from the exact same keyword search)… the split test will then give you the actual results of which headline converts better (sells more). That better sales producer (usually expressed as a conversion rate percentage of the people landing on the page who buy, or take whatever action you request of them). That then becomes your latest conversion rate “benchmark” (also called a “control”) for the page… for you to CONSTANTLY keep testing other headlines against... to see if new headlines can beat the latest conversion rate benchmark… and elevate your level of sales. Your constant goal becomes to always keep trying to “beat the latest control”.

 

Some of my professional internet marketing clients never stop split testing the same landing page… sometimes even running over 100 split tests a year on it. They might try split testing a new headline each week. That way, if they “stumble upon” a better pulling headline, their landing page always keeps getting sharper… converting stronger & stronger as time goes on. Their business keeps growing, and their income keeps increasing.

 

They also split test almost every one of the other individual elements, and blocks of written copy, etc., within the page itself (only testing one element at a time in each split test).

 

They wind up testing everything on the page individually, the exact same split test way… to actually see which version of the element, or even which way each block of copy, each bullet point, is phrased, or which keyword(s) the copy block is optimized for, causes the readers to convert more. They never guess… they always split test.

 

They eventually split test every element and every copy block, on the landing page this same way. They even test using different colors, different fonts, different type sizes, different page layouts and moving around different placements of where each element is located on the page… element by element (yes… they split test trying different graphic elements, “order now”, & “click here”, buttons, and pictures, etc, to see which helps, or hurts, the conversion rate more). They split test offering different bonuses to see if that improves conversions... they test more bonuses offered, less bonuses offered, and split test the concept they are using to create urgency, against another concept… they test increasing urgency pressure, and more powerful, stronger, and/or more, calls to action.

 

Marketing Quiz Can You Pick The Background Color That Instantly Converts 31% More Sales? Bet it's not the one you’re thinking.
	(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)	(e)

 

They even split test making the “offer” itself more irresistible… really sweetening it… up to the point where an interested prospect would be absolutely stupid not to take advantage. The headline is initially the most important element on the page, it can chase 90% of the potential readers away…. or attract 90% of the potential readers into reading the page. BUT, after the headline does its “stuff”, and pulls them in… it’s really the offer that is most important… IN FACT, AFTER WE PULL THE READER INTO THE PAGE, IT’S REALLY ALL ABOUT THE OFFER. Try to keep improving (sweetening) the offer into what we Internet marketers call a “Godfather Offer”… which means “an offer that they can’t refuse”, and watch your conversions skyrocket. A great “Godfather Offer”, even with miserable word copy on the rest of the page, will pull. That’s how important the offer is (of course, if you combine a “Godfather Offer” with great copywriting, you are really in the money).

 

 

They test different lengths, terms, and impacts, of guarantees. They split test different testimonials, and how many testimonials.

 

THEY SPLIT TEST DIFFERENT SELLING PRICES (something that should always be tested very early on). Find out what makes you more total bottom line profit in the long run, for that specific total campaign: many more sales at a very low price, fewer sales at a higher price, or absolutely no sales at too high a price.

 

As a price example… lets look at the selling price for an eBook which has no hard cost per unit to keep sending out the books digital file. If the hard product cost is free to us… and we sell 1,500 eBooks at an attractively low $7.95 for a total income of $11,925. It is so much better that selling only 50 books at a high sale price of $97, for a total income of only $4,850… and we will also have so many more customers to up sell.

 

I suggest starting the initial testing price out as low as possible… and working it constantly higher with each successive split test, to find the price resistance point, and to also find the best selling price, that puts the most overall net money in your pocket, over the long run, for the offer. If it won’t sell at the lowest possible price (at even just a “give away” break even, or loss leader price, tried during the first price split test), it surely won’t sell at a higher price. It is urgent that you find that out quickly.

 

This test simply changed the color and copy on the Call–to–Action button on the article page and added a simple email capture field for lead generation purposes. It appeared to be such a minor insignificant change… until it was split tested:
Control version before changes	"Winning" Treatment
These minor changes resulted in…
13% more free trials per unique visitor, 61% more free trials per clickthrough, and 24% more paid subscriptions per unique visitor.

 

To the untrained eye, this page looked very well designed And it was if you looked at it from a purely graphic or copy–oriented standpoint.   But it was a disaster in terms of eye path, distracting use of the images,  the offer’s bullet points disappearing into the right column, and more.

Winning Treatment

Results after changes   That were made after split testing of every element   125% more free trials per unique visitor,   65% more paid subscriptions per unique visitor, and   53% increase in total revenue.

 

Split Test the Heck Out of Your Letters to Get Them Evolving and Responding to What Your Prospects Want...
Not What You "Guess" They Want

 

Remember the Internet marketers “mantra”…

 

TO BE SUCCESSFUL GUESS AT NOTHING
AND SPLIT TEST EVERYTHING.

 

One of my full time professional internet marketing clients, with over a hundred products and over a hundred individual sales pages on the internet… has a full time employee whose sole function is to run a new split test on every page almost every day. Because of this, his same product income growth continues to skyrocket. His products actually continue to sell more and more as time goes by… not less and less, as his competitors sales decline over time. His competition doesn’t have a clue why he is “burying” them.

 

Successful marketers let the prospects landing on the page vote with their orders which possible version of every element on the page, increases sales best.

 

I recently attended a large internet marketing conference. One of the many speakers asked the audience (of several hundred professional Internet marketers) for a show of hands of who in the audience conducts split tests daily. Only four people in the entire audience raised their hands. The speakers’ next question was… “Who in the audience generates over one million dollars per month of internet produced revenues. The same four hands were the only hands in the room raised again… enough said.

 

To answer the question that is obviously now forming in your mind… do YOU have to do all of that work? The answer is… absolutely not!…

 

it is only necessary if you want to be successful.

 

3 questions to ask yourself INCESSANTLY…

 

1. WHAT IS OUR CONVERSION RATE?
2. ON WHAT PAGE ARE WE LOSING THE MOST CUSTOMERS?
3. WHAT ARE WE TESTING NEXT WEEK?

To your total internet success

 

Leonard
Leonard Friedman Consulting
Since 1970

When only the best will do

© 2010 Leonard Friedman, Leonard Friedman Consulting, all rights reserved