Test, test, Google test it all

Before you send that next email out, the headline for that next ad or decide a title for your artistic project why not test it?

You see it's almost silly to not test it - especially when you realise how easy it is to do so, right now.

So what do I mean by testing? I mean running your copy on an advertising network and letting the masses decide what is your most engaging content.

Tim Ferriss did exactly that for his book aptly named The Four Hour Workweek, originally his title was Selling Drugs for Fun and Profit but after some tensions with his publisher (mainly retailers) he had to relent and come up with a new one. So what did he do? He came up with some titles and used Google Adwords to test them.

Google Adwords are the ads in blue displayed by search results on Google.com. Anyone equipped with a credit card is able to jump on and place an advertisement using Google Adwords.

Your ad then shows depending on what keywords or 'searches' you want it to. For example if you sell Flowers over Valentines you would probably advertise on the keyword 'Valentines Gifts'.

What he [Tim] did was created several different ads with the same body text but different titles. Then set them live. The aim being to display the ads to thousands of people and select the title based on the highest click-through.

After running these tests he found it was The Four Hour Workweek which was the winning combination.

This might sound groundbreaking but it's basic internet marketing - however as it is still an industry in growth these tactics haven't spread to those outside the industry.

Often (as Tim found) it can be the unlikeliest title that works. In fact when we polled a client as to what they thought was the most effective copy, out of three options, all three got it wrong. You see you don't know till you test.

Another test I often run is email open rates to a database. We take a portion of the database and split it up into three different groups.

To each of these groups we then send the same email with different titles to test open rates. Then the best performing we can use for the entire campaign. Further you can test other variables such as Email Copy, Graphics and level of personalisation. Through this you can easily outperform past campaigns (often as high as three fold).

Before you send out that latest communication (or hey even Press Release) give it a second guess and run some Google Adwords (or even Facebook Ads) to test it.

It doesn't cost much and often the benefit you gain from a communication that is magnitudes times better far exceeds your investment.

Ben Young from Bwagy isthe author of The Best Ideas are Free