The Value of Testing and Measuring

Testing is where you make the most progress with your marketing materials. Through testing you can identify where you’re doing well and where you can still stand to do better. At first you can experiment with writing headlines and copy you’re fairly certain will appeal to your target niche. But over time you can refine your marketing message to the point where it’s a lead-generating machine.

When you first start to test, use several places (such as different magazines) and only change a certain section of your ad at a time. Start out with testing a few different headlines and see which one gets you the biggest response from your target audience. Once you’re pretty confident in your headline, start moving down the body of your ad and tweaking areas you might not be sure about.

Once you’re confident in your ad as a whole you have two options: you can let it be and start working on another way to generate leads while this channel brings in a steady stream. Or you can be bold and try something completely different. Remember that sometimes ‘boring’ ways to do something are actually the most useful and changing them can end up hurting your efforts.

Once you’ve got a few good strategies for generating leads you also need to find a mentor. A great mentor is going to help you brainstorm even better ideas and will inspire you to keep reaching further. When you make six figures, you’re going to want to find people who make seven. And when you make seven, you’re going to have to look long and hard to find even greater mentors!

Remember that once someone is in your database you have commenced a relationship with that person. I like to say that the people in my database will be there until they either ‘buy or die’. That means I’ll keep sending them occasional bits of my hard-won wisdom until they either opt out of my list, sign on to train with me or one of my trainers, or until they go to that big gym in the sky!

The original article by Brad Sheppard was featured in Ultra Fit Magazine.