Measure A/B Split Tests to Get Stellar Results with Articles

All good marketers know that they must test each message against a control to see if good results can become stellar results.

Did you know you could do this with the articles you submit to Web sites, e-zines and online directories?

Every article submission site will let you put in a few lines of self-promotional copy and a link to your Web site. Most marketers make the mistake of using only one link that draws reader to one page. This might be helpful in building your lists, but it doesn't do much for determining if you could do better than the norm.

Think of the possibilities for testing if you merely change the call to action and landing page. That's where the testing comes in.

Here's four steps to help you measure A/B split tests with articles.

1. Write your promotional piece. For example, "John Smith, president of ABC-123 Marketing Solutions has helped hundreds of businesses just like yours get the most out of their online promotional efforts . For a free newsletter with tips on how to increase your online ROI, click here."
2. Now write a different call to action. "John Smith, president of ABC-123 Marketing Solutions has helped hundreds of businesses just like yours get more bang for their online buck. For a free checklist of Web marketing best practices, click here."
3. Create a landing page for each message. Decide what the purpose of each page is—do you want to collect names and e-mal addresses, or make a sale? Maybe you want to test prices, or offers like free shipping.
4. Make sure each landing page has a way of measuring traffic and capturing names or sales. Now you have real numbers you can use to determine the effectiveness of each marketing piece.

For example, you could measure sales numbers or the ratio of visitors who place orders and become customers. For longer-range testing, you could measure the number of people who sign up for your newsletter or special report and then eventually buy once trust is established.

As part of our best practices, we submit one article to 100 sites and directories. We routinely suggest to our clients that they create four separate messages and landing pages. Each message is sent to 25 different sites. That way, we can test four different tactics to see which one has the best return.

By doing this procedure, we can test four different messages. Our clients will have the benefit of knowing which messages do best and which perform least. This is invaluable information, especially if you don't want to blow your advertising budget on messages that don't perform well.

As a side benefit, we are creating four inbound links to internal pages, which is a good way for search engines to index more pages on your site. Of course, the more inbound links your site has, the higher it will rank on Google's search engine.

The only way you will know if message performs well is NOT by the results, but by the results seen in comparison with other results.

In other words, let's say you run a campaign and you get 1,000 new sign-ups to your newsletter. That sounds good. But test that against another message and you may find you get 2,000 new sign-ups.

Remember, prospects don't see articles as ads. They see articles as information that helps them get ahead in business and in life.

Prospects will also see you as an expert willing to help them. That puts them in a totally different frame of mind than a casual Web surfer who is on the guard against intrusive advertising, or who has placed mental filters against ads. The article reader can be easily converted to a client or customer because they want to work with a trusted source.

Dan Janal is founder of PR Leads, Excelsior, MN.