Cool Site Review
My partner Brandon has been sending me to these incredible, in-depth marketing reports on a site called Marketing Experiments Journal.
Here’s their mission statement:
“MarketingExperiments is a research laboratory with a simple (but not easy) seven-word mission statement: To discover what really works in optimization. We focus all of our experimentation on optimizing marketing communications. To that end we test every conceivable approach and we publish the results (at no charge) in the Marketing Experiments Journal (subscribe).”
We are working on the BlogSuccess sales process and trying to figure out some new, unique ways to get people to experience the value of the service and become active subscribers.
Our greatest asset is also the problem: we offer so much with this product that a sales letter just doesn’t cut it alone. By the time people get to the bottom of our traditional long format salesletter that they are forgetting the sheer breadth of our offer because there is just so much to it.
Our conversions for software and other easy-to-understand, single-purpose products are higher than our conversions for BlogSuccess. So we know we have work to do and have been researching some new ways to show prospects just what the value of being a subscriber is.
Marketing Experiments seems to have an answer to every question we’ve had this week regarding everything from the type of offer that works best to free trials to offering different payment options (1-3-6 month to yearly) and all kinds of other little things that may enhance conversions.
It seems like you are stealing paid content when you look at a “play book” on Marketing Experiments. You feel like you are looking at paid content behind a member wall, but you’re not.
Their public stuff is remarkably valuable in this age of “fluffy” content. Just scan their Research Archive and you’ll see exactly what I mean. This stuff is deep, valuable, take-it-to-the-bank research.
If you are setting up a new product, a recurring revenue model, or need help with your headline writing skills and you want to cheat off of someone else’s work rather than constantly testing your own stuff all the time, then Marketing Experiments is a site you definitely need on your bookmark list.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Jack, one of the things that will have me buy a product like the one you’re offering is testimonials and even better case studies. If I can see that other people have gotten value for money using the product or service it is hard for me to resist to buy
Jack,
You are so right about Marketing Experiments! I’ve been attending their free webinars and devouring the free content on their website for about 9 months now. In my opinion this is the single best source to learn about systematic web marketing, testing and tracking.
They are no fluff and no BS and what they teach really works. On one of my projects I was able to go from a 2% to a 10% conversion rate just by following a few of their recommendations.
Barry Os last blog post..Save the Stuffing for the Turkey Not Your Keywords
Hi Jack,
Thanks for the great review. We’re glad to hear you’re finding our research and content valuable. Let me return the favor — in a short time, I’ve already found some excellent resources here that I’ll be sure to investigate, and your RSS feed is now on my must-read list.
I hope you’ll join us for our live web clinics (also free) and let us know how we can keep improving.
Cheers,
Hunter Boyle
Managing Editor, MarketingExperiments.com
Thanks for stopping in Hunter!
And thanks for the great feedback David and Mikael!
Barry! Haven’t seen you in awhile! Thanks for the visit!
hey Jack,
I got hooked on the Marketing Experiments site a while ago because of their approach to experimental analysis. It’s amazing how much marketing info flies around the web without any real hard numbers to back any of it up.
Coming from an experimental science background I always had trouble digesting most of what I read because of the lack of information surrounding the results as well as the constant questioning of the techniques used to evaluate the data being captured for analysis.
Results from social science experiments, like those in marketing, are inherently hard to analyze compared with hard sciences like physics and therefore have limitations. The guys at marketing experiments understand that and it shows in their analysis of their own results. In my mind this makes their results all the more valuable.
thanks for the post.
todd
Todd Alans last blog post..Does Eben Pagan Work in His Underwear?
Jack
The Marketing Experiment looks like a great place for research on what really works. Thanks for the introduction and the link.
Gary McElwain
Thanks for the resource Jack.
Had never heard of Marketing Experiments dot com.
I had a long response posted – about how I disagree with David – how $97 is to much – but I failed the math test and it did not keep my reply.
So I’ll just let the link to my blog post say it for me.
But in a nutshell… you may be pricing it to low – who knows.
I subscribe to the ‘Puppy Dog Close” and trial strategies… but they have inherent problems (i.e. why’d you charge my card, who are you, I forgot to cancel, etc, etc, etc).
But there’s no arguing the methods work.
Heck, you could even raise the price to $297 a month – lose 70% of your members and possible make more money – don’t know your metrics.
You’d have less customer support issues… could spend more ‘one on one’ time with each member… it’s all about perception.
Let’s see – “Please add 8 and 6″ – hope the answer is 14.
Andrew
Andrews last blog post..Perception ~ Story of the Red Horse Blanket
Sorry man – I didn’t think the single digit math was going to go over anyone’s head.
Yeah I’m not worried about the price at all. We serve a certain market. We don’t want to raise the price either, we just want 6000 members.
So let’s do math: There are 6 billion people on the planet. We need 1000 people per billion to sign up for an extremely high quality, results-oriented training center for profitable blogging.
1000 parts per billion. Seems pretty doable to me.
We had a lot of upgrades from SPL $29 to B$ at $97. Everyone who was in SPL could keep their access through B$ to all their stuff for same price, but most are seeing the advantage of upgrading. SPL is part of B$ now, but we’re not taking subscriptions at that level anymore. SPL’ers were just grandfathered in.