How Seth Godin Made 232K In 7 Days w/A Headline Test
 

Got An Idea for Ya' Dien,

Kickstarter.com - is a website where individual investors GIVE YOU
Money for your idea, project or - in Seth Godin's Case - BOOK TITLE.

Yup.

No book yet.

Just the HEadline.

I went to Kickstarter and discovered Seth ran a test last year
that bombed. Didn't even make his 4000.00 goal.

A Good Way to TEST YOURSELF...

(The point being that NONE of us who Successfully sells information
knows what headline, price or Offer will work best. So like Seth Godin does.

WE ASK. (Called Testing)

=================
=================
232K HEADLINE POP QUIZ:

Which of these 2 Headlines Do YOU Think Made 262,336.00 in 7 days at
kickstarter AND Which Headline made less than 4000.00?

___ A - The Icarus Deception: Why Make Art? - Seth Godin
We’re All Artists Now. Why it’s important and why it’s hard.

___B - The Remarkable Effect: Highlighting Kid Business Owners - Seth Godin

REMEMBER - Seth hasn’t written the book Yet!

Thanks,
Glenn Osborn

P.S. - Here's a Hint. I Always Guess Wrong. And I'd buy the book about the
little kid Biz owners in a hot minute. So. Guess which book title BOMBED.

A new model for "dry testing" ...
 

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for the "heads up" on Seth Godin's test on Kickstarter!

I "googled" it and found an article here...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...246426550.html

Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com (and other websites - another big one is Indiegogo www.indiegogo.com ) seem to be great places to "dry test"...

"Dry testing" is selling something before you have created it. It used to commonly be done by direct marketers - that is, promote a product, take orders. If you get enough orders, make the product (and tell buyers there will be a delay, offering a refund if they are not willing to wait). If you don't get enough orders, give an excuse to buyers, and refund their money.

However, this was made much more difficult a few years ago with the 30-day rule - you had to be able to ship your product within 30 days.

Denny Hatch has a great article on dry-testing - and a way to do it which may be legal...

http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/ar...ect-marketing#

However, crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are another model for "dry-testing"...

Why is it legal their way?

It's because technically, you are not actually making sales. Instead, you are asking for donations (to fund your project), and in return, you are offering "rewards" to the donors, if you reach your funding goal...

If the project doesn't reach the goal which has been set, nobody pays anything (and the credit cards of "donors" are never charged).

People are only charged if the goal has been reached. That amount of money should be enough to fund the project, so the "rewards" can then be distributed to the "donors" or supporters of the project...

It's a fascinating model for dry-testing...

Best wishes,

Dien

Re: How Seth Godin Made 232K In 7 Days w/A Headline Test
 

Dien,

Never thought about kickstarter, et al like that. Thanks for opening my horizons.

Tom

Gordon W. Grossman, Reader's Digest, a systematic, disciplined testing new products..
 

Another one to Read about on the Subject, unless I missed it in Glenn's and Dien's comments and links...

Good ol' Readers Digest's... From way back when... ;)

QUICK SCAN...

How to Do a Dry Test | Direct mail content from Chief Marketer
chiefmarketer.com › Direct Marketing › Direct mail
1 Feb 2007 – In this excerpt from his new book, Gordon W. Grossman offers tips on how to dry test products. ... Reader's Digest created a systematic and disciplined approach to testing new products, primarily because of the creation of ...
http://tinyurl.com/7o8m7j7

Phil

Good Find Phil - on Readers Digest Testing
 

Thanks Phil,

According to Grossman and his Dry Test Surveys...at Readers Digest and Time Life...

They had a lot of failures using a Survey alone.

40 years ago Readers Digest used to use tiny local papers to run Ads
to sell Special Reports.

Each Special Report headline was the title of a proposed Article for the magazine.

Since they were SELLING each Report for 25 Cents each - this method got
100% Accurate Results as to How well each issue would sell.

A - They got lazy - I think - Easier than ever to test on-line

B - All the local papers closed down

Thanks,
Glenn Osborn