Would you like to know the secrets to becoming a marketing guru? How to write headlines and copy that you KNOW will get you results? Well read on further and you will discover the easiest way to becoming a marketing genius.
Let's start by looking at a common scenario ...
Imagine for a moment that you're about to place an advertisement into a 12 month telephone directory. Now assuming that you know just a little about advertising you will understand that your ad needs a headline, and not just your company name.
But which will be the most effective headline for your ad? Which headline will get potential clients calling you instead of your competitors?
Well it's almost impossible to guess and be correct. Even for a copywriter such as myself with years of experience I would still be guessing. Sure I would be making a far more educated guess than the average business owner, but given what's at stake, wouldn't it be nice to KNOW which headline was best BEFORE you place your ad.
Well there is a way to test a number of headlines and copy before you part with your money, thanks to the internet.
To explain how this works, let's take a look at Google Adwords.
Now Google, for those of you who don't know, is the most popular search engine in the world. So popular that over half of the searches that are done online are done on Google. When a person does a search on Google they type in a word, or a series of words to help them find websites that are relevant to what they want to research. The words they type in are called 'Keywords', or 'Keyword Phrases'.
Given the huge number of websites that currently exist around the world, there can be a huge amount of competition to list high on Google for any given keyword, or keyword phrase. In fact, competition is so fierce for most keywords, that it can be a never ending struggle to list high in Google's free listings (known as 'organic' listings). So rather than trying to get on the first page of free listings, many companies chose to place ads on Google that only appear when relevant searches are made. These ads are called Adwords and they appear under the heading 'sponsored links'.
Without going into too much detail now about how Adwords works, I would like to explain how Adwords can make you a marketing guru.
Google Adwords allows you to test multiple advertisements at the same time. This is known as 'Split Testing'. It works by displaying one advertisment when someone searches using the keywords to phrases that you are paying for, and then showing your next advertisement when the next person searches using those words.
The advantage of this system is that you can easily track how any times each advertisement is clicked. If ad number 1 gets clicked 35 times, and ad number 2 only gets clicked twice, then there is an excellent chance that the headline in ad number 1 is far more effective than the headline in ad number 2. This simply act of 'split testing' your Adwords advertisements can tell you which headline works best in as little as 48 hours. But it doesn't need to end there.
Now that you know that the headline in ad number 1 is more effective, you can now delete ad number 2 and replace it with a new ad, complete with a new headline, and see if that new headline can get even more clicks than the headline in ad number 1. Best of all you can keep testing new ads day after day until you are completely satisfied that you have worked out which is the most effective headline for your campaign.
Of course it stands to reason that the headline that receives the most clicks in your Adwords campaign, will also receive the most phone calls if used in your telephone directory advertisement. Armed with this knowledge, you can now confidently place your directory ad, knowning that you have a headline that will have your phone ringing off the hook.
Of course there is a lot to running an Adwords campaign, and counting the number of clicks an ad gets is not the only consideration. But it's a great starting point. Pay Per Click advertising, such as Google Adwords, can give you invaluable feedback from the people that matter most - your customers.
So if you want to become a marketing guru, look no further than Google Adwords.
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