Market Testing

Before committing significant resources to a specific promotional effort, it pays to have some idea of results you can expect. If you plan to print and deliver 20,000 flyers, for example, how can you tell if your results will be worth your expenses?

Market testing is the cost-effective solution. By testing a representative sampling of your targeted prospects and then extrapolating those results to your market as a whole, you can get an idea of what to expect once you fully roll out your marketing campaign. While this approach is no guarantee of success, it certainly puts the odds more greatly in your favour. With all of the time and money that can go into a marketing campaign, it only makes sense to hedge your bets.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to predict exactly how your prospects will react to your marketing efforts. Something as simple as a colour change can have an effect on your response rate. Fortunately, market testing can help here as well. By testing more than one marketing variation, you can get a good idea of how your prospects might respond to your various campaigns. For example, if you ran three different advertisements in three local newspapers and found that one generated a better response rate than the other two, you could eliminate the poor producers and run more of the successful one. In all likelihood, your response rate would improve as a result then continually re-test and adjust. This concept is the same wether you are marketing in print or online. Find a way to test the effectiveness of your marketing before investing heavily, and then continue to monitor and tweak as you move forward.

How will you test your company’s marketing activities? Incorporate this information into your Marketing System.