Winner.  The top of the food chain.  Numero Uno.  These terms exist within our lexicon as ways to identify a position at the top.  And even something as dastardly as marketing can be quantified and categorized as to it’s relative effectiveness.  There is a whole science attributed to it.  Entire marketing departments are charged with picking and categorizing winners and losers.

This dark, lifeless measurement activity is known simply as ‘testing’.  Each campaign is judged against the marketing ‘prom queen’ dubiously monikered ‘the control’.  The control is a cruel mistress, long regarded as the queen bee because of her consistent high value response rate.  She is the sexiest weapon in our arsenal of printed salesmanship – Cleopatra in a desert of commercial copy.  I’ll dispense with the theatrics – I am sure you get my metaphor.

Every so often, a young champion takes the scene, intent on emerging victorious at a challenge of ‘King of the Mountain’.  This young philly is the ‘test’ (known in the business as a split test or ab test). Snapping back to the cold literal description – the test is the David to the control’s Goliath.  The control is a large campaign to the majority of your list.  We feel safe in sending the control to this group because we know from repeated performances in the past, the control always performs best in relation to all other tests that came before it.

But we always want to do better.  However, it would be foolhardy to attempt a new offer, copy, list or design to an unproven ‘variable’ (that element of the control that is being altered to determine it’s effect on the performance of the campaign).  Therefore this modified control – the ‘test’ is only sent out to a small sample of prospective or would-be buyers.  Usually they don’t measure up to old lady control.  But every now and then, you find a superstar – one who rises to the top and dethrones the control and takes her place.

My loyal readers, if you want this medium to pay of for you – in the long run – you will do the same.  You will start testing.  You have to.  It really is the only way to determine if your responses are ‘winners’, losers, or just mediocre.  If Charlie Sheen knew a thing or two about this, he probably would understand that the revenue stream produced by his spoken word show is no match for ‘Two and A Half Men’.  He would have given it a shot, come to the swift realization that being a freelance performer is no match for network or big studio money, and beg for his old job back.

I am not saying that once you find a ‘winner’ you stick with it forever.  Quite the contrary.  You always need to be attempting to take yourself (and your business) to the next level.  But don’t bet the entire farm on every idea you have.  Try it out to a small group first.  Test it out.  Beyond your campaign, this is how you determine yourself to be a winner.  The smart owner recognizes that they have to constantly sample what their market wants.

I started out as a cost analyst for a label printing firm, then a large direct mailing company that distributed sweepstakes promotions, learning all the insider secrets to commerical printing.  I saw first-hand how direct mail advertisers transform good offers into Powerhouse Sales Opportunities by simply testing and executing promotions using the fundamentals of consistently successful ad campaigns. I also learned the mistakes to avoid that can cost direct mail advertisers a lot of money!Mark Ryanwww.directmailsecrets.nethttp://directmailsecrets.net/affiliateprogram.aspx 
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‘Hold up there, Charlie Sheen'. How to Define ‘Winning'


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