For example.

If your newspaper advertisement costs you X dollars and you are not sure how much business this ad generates then you are just wasting your money.

If your newspaper advertisement costs you X dollars and it’s gives you return on X dollars too, then you should understand there are ways you can increase profit on your advertisement.

In New Delhi, One of the magazine publishing company asked for a critique in their on-going advertisement. The headache was they were getting almost no subscribers (close to 400–500 subscriber a month).

Now for a magazine these numbers are very important. One of the monetization method that they use depends on “how much people are ready to spend in their magazine”.

Now When I was critiquing their full page ad. I told their marketing manager to create a better offer and show him what kind of offer it’d work. Plus I re-wrote few key lines in the ads that helped generate subscribers.

My critique gave them 12–15 things to change immediately. (NOTE: All of this is about copywriting that sells, click here for more info).

When the next time they ran they changed 3–4 things and improve their offer for subscription.

Can you guess how the change worked?

Their subscription jumped from 500 a month to 15,000 a month.

They didn’t pay anything extra to run this advertising. They didn’t pay anything extra to create new offer. All they changed was few words on the advertising.

The key to success here was “Direct response advertising”. In DR ads, the reader is engaged and directed to act (or buy). There’s nothing un-ethical about this as all the ad discuss the benefits of working with your company, the product or the service in detail.

This kind of advertising works in print, Audio(radio), Video (infomercials) and internet (web copy). You’d be surprised by the results you see after you make few key changes in the copy.

Remember a Good marketing strategy + Good Advertisement = Good Results.

Good marketing strategy + Good Advertisement + Good product/service = Damn Good Results.

This is as simple as that. So if you want to improve your chances, you should think about how to improve your advertising to succeed.

If you need help with critiques, you can check with me here.

Varun Pratap

Desire. Commit. Succeed.

He is putting a print ad in few magazines. So I suggested this simple idea.

Code your every ad (and offer) with Monthly and magazine code. For example if your magazine is “men’s health n fitness” you can code it as “MHF” and For dec 2009. You can code it as “12–09” or “TW-09”.

So your overall code becomes MHF-TW-09 Which basically means the offer was from Men’s health and fitness, december 09. Simple Neat and easy.

Now you can either print it on the ad and have people send a copy of the ad or Suggest people to refer to this code for extra bonus or something. Either way, you’ll know which magazine generated what kind of response to your ads.

Testing TV ads become pain in the neck. Though I won’t be talking about it today, but understand you have to be little creative to use the above method for using TV or radio ads.

What if I tell you, “You can easily increase your sales by 30–50% by doing few things differently”, are you going to be interested?

If the answer is yes, then keep reading as this is what I am going to talk about it here.

Which Do you Chose?

80 Unique Visitors = $3 income or 80 Unique Visitors $70 Income per day.

I once had a website, which had very little traffic and was making $3 a day. For some reason, I decided to work on my website design, offer to improve visitors to sales conversion. I spent lot of time working on every small detail I could think of and end result was $70/day Income from same numbers of visitors.

Can you believe with same amount of visitors I increased my income by 23 times?

Holy crap!!!. Yes, that was my response.

When I realized how much money I was leaving at the table, I instantly become convert to the idea of testing.

Test Your Headline, Offer, Price and dramatically Improve your sales.

Now when I started testing. I didn’t had any good software script that could help me. But you don’t have to worry about it.

If you have a google account (which you can create anytime), you can start experimenting with your website content and find out how to convert more visitors into sales.

Google Web Optimizer Script : You don’t have to worry about installing it to your webserver. You just have to create a web optimizer account and get started.

Try with an A/B Split Test experiment.

When you are testing, you should at least start with A/B split test experiment (Check Wikipedia for more info).

From Google Answers. An A/B experiment allows you to test the performance of two (or more!) entirely different versions of a page. Start with your original test page — the page whose content you want to test — then create alternate versions of that page. You can change the content of a page, alter the look and feel, or move around the layout of your alternate pages — whatever you choose. We’ll vary traffic to your original page and your alternate versions, to see what users respond to best.

A/B experiments are the simpler version of testing with Website Optimizer. If you have a low amount of traffic and want results fast, creating an A/B test may be the right place to start.

A/B experiment testings 2 different elements of your website.

For example. If you have a headline something like

“How to lose 10 pounds fast?”.

You can try testing another headline against this

“How to lose 10 pounds in 20 days with this secret calorie shifting technique”

All you need to do is create an A/B experiment in google web optimizer and copy and paste a simple script which will show different variation of your headline to your visitors.

And then it’ll generate a report on which version produce better results.

Video on how to do A/B Split Test experiment.

Now when you start with a testing your headline like this, you’ll be surprised to see the results. Often marketers don’t know which of their version of content will perform better. But as you start testing and keep records of these tests, you’ll start getting into the psyche of your visitors and perform better.

This is the reasoning behind split testing.

You should test these elements in the decreasing order.

1. Headline (MOST IMPORTANT)

2. Price

3. Offer

4. Audio/Video demo

5. Layout

Just This simple A/B split test will open the doors of wonder for you. You’ll start seeing the numbers complete differently. I hope this post at least get you started on the right track of testing.

Best Regards

Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.

This factor is common to Catalog sites, Personal sites, business sites, content sites, portal sites and every other sites that exists.

Here are few of the answers people believe are right-

1. Website Design
2. Slogan
3. Graphics and Logo
4. Marketing approach
5. Any latest Internet Technology (web 2.0, blog and ping, rss feeds etc)
5. any other answer (any answer that talks about getting traffic is not right, we are talking about website)

If your answer is any of the above, then it’s wrong.

The right answer is “The Words You use on your website”.

I know this is surprising but imagine how a website would look like without any words. Imagine what your graphics, design alone without words would say?

In fact if you take any B2B website, remove their words and then look, you’ll get Same design, Same style that it’ll be hard to differentiate between them.

You are on my blog not because you like the design or you just know me or you think this is the next coming of internet technology. No. You are here because of the words I wrote. You are spending time because the Words jump out to you and resonate with you.

Just take google.com the world’s best search engine website. What’d happen if I remove the words.

Can you make head or tail of it? You have no idea what to do? Heck even their logo is made up of word google.

What I did was erase “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” from the buttons above.

Before you came at google, you knew what’ll happen if you enter a term and click “Google Search”. But now you are clueless.

That’s why I suggest in the website, the most important factor is the words you use.

It’ll help differentiate your website than your competitors.

It’ll help you connect with your customers/prospects easily.

It’ll give meaning to your pictures, graphics on your website.

It’ll help you build trust with your visitors.

It’ll help you share information with your visitors/prospects/customers (isn’t that’s the whole reason you got your website?)

Words will help you brand your business and website.

Now the question is does any kind of word will help you? Of course the answer is NO.

You have to use words, that helps your visitors to guide through your website, understand how your website can help, and show them how to get solution to their problems.

Words will make a heck a lot difference if you just open your eyes and listen to your customers voice. 

Click Here if your goal is to create a High performing website.

First lesson :- Strike and Grab the Opportunity fast whenever it presents

This is the first and most important lesson that you’ll learn while doing Internet Marketing.

It all comes down to speed of implementation. If you are slow, time will move on and chances of your profiting from the opportunity has left you by.

If you compare internet time line to offline line real world time line, then time is moving at least 4 times faster on internet (that’s due to advancement in Internet technologies). The cause and effect can be seen almost immediately of internet technology and time.

People who sit on the side line and wait and check are often late and broke.

That’s why I said speed of implementation is important.

Second Lesson : Ideas are dime a dozen, Action is rarer.

Too many people have way too many ideas… but people who take action are rarer. And thats true in harshest of terms for people on internet. With the access to ever changing technologies, people can exchange ideas in a blink. But People who take action on those ideas are rare and those who do, often succeeds.

Again complimented with first lesson of speed of implementation, this will help you tremendously.

Third lesson : Sell whenever the damn you can

Someone told me, “Every attempt at communication is an attempt of persuasion. Either you are persuading someone or being persuaded by someone”. When I am writing as “Sell whenever the damn you can”, it sounds like a sleazy salesman or slick opportunist.

But that’s not my intent at all.

In internet, the method of communication changes a LOT and if you have a business, you have to learn, adapt and implement different communication methods. If you are selling online you have to utilize every opportunity to communicate efficiently otherwise you’ll not sell at all.

Fourth Lesson : Learn to communicate with written word.

Now as you can guess, learning to write is going to be one of the most important way to communicate online. If you can’t write, you can’t communicate. Oh yes there are videos, audios too but let me say it again, written communication is a HUGE part of Online communities. You just cannot ignore it.

Fifth Lesson : It only takes one silly mistake to get crushed in the time

Doing business ethically is important. With internet and the ease of communication methods, you can be easily crushed. If you are a good businessman, then people won’t be able to slander you even with internet. Why ? because your evangelists(customers) will help you fight against them.

You are nothing but a speck of dirt in the time line and trust me, it’s going to be important to do your business ethically and grow and succeed.

There are many other things I can write here but I think the long laundry list is unnecessary. 5 lessons will suffice for now.

Varun Pratap

Desire. Commit. Succeed.

One of my foundational base is “Scientific advertising”. In this, you have to understand the nature of your product, your company, your customer base and so much more so that you can create a marketing frenzy. It goes beyond what you might think about marketing or selling.

And because I have worked with pretty darn successful companies in New Delhi. I realized they have no concept of marketing and selling. Often their marketers are doing the job of salesman (and doing a piss poor job of it) and their marketing is literally man-handled by people who should have nothing to do with marketing at all.

For Example :– One of the Marketer for this publishing company was more worried about selling the advertisement page for the magazine rather than creating a strategy which results in automatically selling those pages, building a database or may be more effective brand awareness.

And these marketers have gall to brag about how successful their last campaign was. When you ask them what are they going to do afterwards, their silence give you the answer. Sometimes I wonder what exactly they think their job as marketer is?

Ah, I digress.

The problem with institutional advertising is, it’s too time consuming, too resource hogging, too pricey and almost always gets results which cannot be substantiated. This is where most business owners get owned and swallowed by their own business.

And this is exactly where I am going to show how anyone can handle their own marketing with just a shift in mindset. If your base is “scientific advertising”, then you’ll see results of your campaign and be able to realize and make informed decisions whether you should scrap this campaign or not before it starts bleeding your account dry.

And that’s how exactly you should be doing your business.

For example :– I helped a marketer with a full page advertisement which was going on 4 national monthly magazines with re-creating the offer, changing image position and improving the overall impact of the advertisement. The results was staggering. He could not believe how much response his ad got. His office was swamped with calls and people tried to get their hands on the offer.

The best part was he knew when to scrap this campaign as it started losing steam and instantly changed the offer with new advertisement improving his results. 

Now this is what I call smart marketing. I did help create the advertisement, but it’s his job to make sure he runs it and follows it afterwards. Most MBA grads spend spray shinning their diploma/degree rather than understand how to actually successful market and campaign their products.

Customers might cost $1.50 each. And the revenue per customer might not in ten years repay the cost of getting. Mail order sales on single articles, however popular, rarely cost less that $42.50 each. It is reasonable to suppose that sales made through dealers on like articles will cost approximately as much. Those facts must be considered on any one-sale article. Possibly one user will win others. But traced returns as in mail order advertising would prohibit much advertising which is now being done.

Costly mistakes are made by blindly following some ill-conceived idea. An article, for instance, may have many uses, one of which is to prevent disease. Prevention is not a popular subject, however much it should be. People will do much to cure trouble, but people in general will do little to prevent it. This has been proved my many disappointments.

One may spend much money in arguing prevention when the same money spent on another claim would bring many times the sales. A heading which asserts one claim may bring ten times the results of a heading which asserted another. An advertiser may go far astray unless he finds out.

A tooth paste may tend to prevent decay. It may also beautify teeth. Tests will probably find that the latter appeal is many times as strong as the former. The most successful tooth paste advertiser never features tooth troubles in his headlines. Tests have proved them unappealing. Other advertisers in this line center on those troubles. That is often because results are not known and compared.

A soap may tend to cure eczema. It may at the same time improve complexion. The eczema claim may appeal to one in a hundred while the beauty claims would  appeal to nearly all. To even mention the eczema claims might destroy the beauty claims.

A man has a relief for asthma. It has done so much for him he considers it a great advertising possibility. We have no statistics on this subject. We do not know the percentage of people who suffer from asthma. A canvass might show it to be one in a hundred.

If so, he would need to cover a hundred useless readers to reach one he wants. His cost of result might be twenty times as high as on another article which appeals to one in five. That excessive cost would probably mean disaster. For reasons like these every new advertiser should seek for wise advice. No one with the interests of advertising at heart will advise any dubious venture.

Some claims not popular enough to feature in the main are still popular enough to consider. They influence a certain number of people – say one-fourth of your possible customers. Such claims may be featured to advantage in a certain percentage of headlines. It should probably be included in every advertisement. But those are not things to guess at. They should be decided by actual knowledge, usually by traced returns.

This chapter, like every chapter, points out a very important reason for knowing your results. Scientific advertising is impossible without that. So is safe advertising. So is maximum profit. Groping in the dark in this field has probably cost enough money to pay the national debt. That is what has filled the advertising graveyards. That is what has discouraged thousands who could profit in this field. And the dawn of knowledge is what is bringing a new day in the advertising world. 

Changing peoples habits is very expensive. A project which involves that must be seriously considered. To sell shaving soap to the peasants of Russia one would first need to change their beard wearing habits. The cost would be excessive. Yet countless advertisers try to do things almost as impossible. Just because questions are not ably considered, and results are traced but unknown.

For instance, the advertiser of a dentifrice may spend much space and money to educate people to brush their teeth. Tests which we know of have indicated that the cost of such converts may run from $20 to $25 each. Not only because of the difficulty, but because much of the advertising goes to people already converted.

Such a cost, of course, is unthinkable. One might not in a lifetime get it back in sales. The maker who learned these facts by tests make no attempt to educate people to the tooth brush habit. What cannot be done on a large scale profitably can not be done on a small scale. So not one line in any ad is devoted to this object.

This maker, who is constantly guided in everything by keying every ad, has made remarkable success.
Another dentifrice maker spends much money to make converts to the tooth brush. The object is commendable, but altruistic. The new business he creates is shared by his rivals. He is wondering why his sales increase is in no way commensurate with his expenditure.

An advertiser at one time spent much money to educate people to the use of oatmeal. The results were too small to discover. All people know of oatmeal. As a food for children it has age-old fame. Doctors have advised it for many generations. People who don’t serve oatmeal are therefore difficult to start. Perhaps their objections are insurmountable. Anyway, the cost proved to be beyond all possible return.

There are many advertisers who know facts like these and concede them. They would not think of devoting a whole campaign to any such impossible object. Yet they devote a share of their space to that object. That is only the same folly on a smaller scale. It is not good business.

No one orange grower or raisin grower could attempt to increase the consumption of those fruits. The cost might be a thousand times his share of the returns. But thousands of growers combined have done it on those and many other lines. There lies one of the great possibilities of advertising development. 

The general consumption of scores of foods can be profitably increased. But it must be done on wide co-operation.
No advertiser could afford to educate people on vitamins or germicides. Such things are done by authorities, through countless columns of unpaid-for space. But great successes have been made by going to people already educated and satisfying their created wants.

It is a very shrewd thing to watch the development of a popular trend, the creation of new desires. Then at the right time offer to satisfy those desires. That was done on yeast’s, for instance, and on numerous antiseptics.

It can every year be done on new things which some popular fashion or widespread influence is brought into vogue. But it is a very different thing to create that fashion, taste or influence for all in your field to share.

Other pictures form a total loss. We have cited cases of that kind. The only way to know, as is with most other questions, is by compared results.

There are disputed questions in art work which we will cite without expressing opinions. They seem to be answered both ways, according to the line which is advertised.

Does it pay better to use fine art work or ordinary? Some advertisers pay up to $2,000 per drawing. They figure that the space is expensive. The art cost is small in comparison. So they consider the best worth its cost.

Others argue that few people have art education. They bring out their ideas, and bring them out well, at a fraction of the cost. Mail order advertisers are generally in this class.

The question is one of small moment. Certainly good art pays as well as mediocre. And the cost of preparing ads is very small compared with the cost of insertion.

Should every ad have a new picture? Or may a picture be repeated? Both viewpoints have many supporters. The probability is that repetition is an economy. We are after new customers always. It is not probably that they remember a picture we have used before. If they do, repetition does not detract.

Do color pictures pay better than black and white? Not generally, according to the evidence we have gathered to date. Yet there are exceptions. Certain food dishes look far better in colors. Tests on lines like oranges, desserts, etc. show that color pays. Color comes close to placing the products in actual exhibition.

But color used to amuse or to gain attention is like anything else that we use for that purpose. It may attract many times as many people, yet not secure a hearing from as many whom we want.

The general rule applies. Do nothing to merely interest, amuse, or attract. That is not your province. Do only that which wins the people you are after in the cheapest possible way.

But these are minor questions. They are mere economies, not largely affecting the results of a campaign.
Some things you do may cut all your results in two. Other things can be done which multiply those results. Minor costs are insignificant when compared with basic principles.

One man may do business in a shed, another in a palace. That is immaterial. The great question is, ones power to get the maximum results.

Not only in picturing the collar or the clothes, but in picturing men whom others envy, in surroundings which others covet. The pictures subtly suggest that these articles of apparel will aid men to those desired positions.

So with correspondence schools. Theirs is traced advertising. Picturing men in high positions of taking upward steps forms a very convincing argument.

So with beauty articles. Picturing beautiful women, admired and attractive, is a supreme inducement. But there is a great advantage in including a fascinated man. Women desire beauty largely because of men. Then show them using their beauty, as women do use it, to gain maximum effect.

Advertising pictures should not be eccentric. Don’t treat your subject lightly. Don’t lessen respect for your self or your article by any attempt at frivolity. People do not patronize a clown. There are two things about which men should not joke. One is business, one is home.

An eccentric picture may do you serious damage. One may gain attention by wearing a fools cap. But he would ruin his selling prospects.

Then a picture which is eccentric or unique takes attention from your subject. You cannot afford to do that. Your main appeal lies in headline. Over-shadow that and you kill it. Don’t, to gain general and useless attention, sacrifice the attention that you want.

Don’t be like a salesman who wears conspicuous clothes. The small percentage he appeals to are not usually good buyers. The great majority of the sane and thrifty heartily despise him. Be normal in everything you do when you are seeking confidence and conviction.

Generalities cannot be applied to art. There are seeming exceptions to most statements. Each line must be studied by itself.

But the picture must help sell the goods. It should help more than anything else could do in like space, else use that something else.