Did you hear that Facebook was manipulating what some people saw in their accounts as part of a big experiment?
Users were in uproar.
And then the dating site OKCupid admitted this week that it was doing something similar.
Now, it’s not nice to conduct experiments on people without telling them.
But…
… Experiments can be useful for your marketing because they help you decide what works best.
Here are two ideas:
1. You can test your newsletter. This only works if you are sending out many (say about 500) but you can test various subject lines (for email), various offers, and even different content to see what works best.
2. You can test the content of your opt-in form. (Your opt-in form is the form you should have on your website to encourage people to give you their email address so that you can keep in touch with them.) You could test various offers (the type of bonus material you offer in return for their email address) or simply just the wording on your form.
I do a lot of this type of thing in my own business – particularly the pages that host the form that you probably signed up on to receive this.
OK, this is all an advanced technique. But when you get into collecting contact data and sending newsletters on a regular basis, it can pay off.
If you are not there yet, don’t worry. Just start with your own newsletter.