Experimentation in Marketing
by John Eberhard

One of the major goals that people engaged in marketing have, is to come up with a marketing or advertising campaign, or even a single promo piece, that will get great response. Something that I would call a "home run".

So you try to come up with a "home run", and then when you do, you really pour the coals on with that campaign or piece, running it for months or even years.

The trick of course is how to hit that home run. How do you come up with a campaign or piece that really hits the public's reality and does all the things you have to do to get volume response?

The first key is to do market research surveys on your public. You need to find out which public is likely to buy your product or service, what they need and want, and especially what benefits they perceive they would get from your product or service. L. Ron Hubbard has written an extensive series of articles about how to survey your public, called the "Marketing Series".

OK, so now you've done some surveys. So you give the surveys to your copywriter and designer and tell them to use the information. And they'll design a new campaign or a single piece, and you'll send it out and immediately you'll have that "home run" that you desire and you'll become a smash success within 30 days. Right?

Well OK, maybe I exaggerate a little. But I have seen many cases where people in companies have had some market research done, then have decided to have one new campaign or one new piece done based on the survey results, and they don't even plan anything else. So if the one campaign or piece is a success, they're very happy. But if it isn't, they take a big loss on it and give up. They conclude marketing "didn't work".

Maybe the actions preparing that campaign or piece weren't done correctly. But more likely, the person had an incorrect idea of the magnitude of the job at hand, so they gave up too soon.

Even when you have a full set of well done surveys done on your market, and you have been in business for a while and have records of responses to past promo, you still don't have the answer to every question you would have when putting together that piece or campaign.

Good market research can answer most of the questions you would have. But how about which lists are the best? The mailing list is one of the most important elements in any direct mail campaign.

How about the headline or the picture? Ideally you should come up with several headlines and several picture sketches, then survey them to get the public's reaction and preference. But you may be limited by funds and may not be able to do this type of survey.

How about the offer? The offer you make is very important in determining response. But often people forget to survey their point.

My main point is that marketing is an area where you must experiment. You should definitely have market research surveys done. But once they are done, you should plan on doing a series of pieces or campaigns, not just one.

You might have to experiment with offers, headlines, pictures, the general approach with ad copy, the list, or the publications in which you run an ad. In doing this type of experimentation in marketing, there are several key points to keep in mind:

1. Survey on as many points as possible, including identifying the public, their needs and wants, plus other factors like the acceptability of the picture and headline, the offer, and which media they read, listen to or watch.

2. If possible, experiment with only one factor at a time, so you can tell which factor made the difference.

3. Keep careful track of responses, so you know what is successful.

4. Experiment in relatively small amounts. Then once you find something that really works, use it to the hilt.

5. Be prepared to experiment with various factors in your campaign or piece until you get it right.

If you follow these points, and you have a good product or service, you can hit that "home run"!

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