Before selling through the mail I want to test...

online. I was going to test a 5000 piece mailing list. I've written a course on what I do every day in my business. However, as I was ready to rent the list I've been told that to downplay my risk I should test online first.

Do you folks agree and if yes could you tell me specifically the best way to test because I am not a very saavy internet marketer.

Originally Posted by killarney

online. I was going to test a 5000 piece mailing list. I've written a course on what I do every day in my business. However, as I was ready to rent the list I've been told that to downplay my risk I should test online first.

Do you folks agree and if yes could you tell me specifically the best way to test because I am not a very saavy internet marketer.

To me, it doesn't make sense that you want to test using two completely different media. That, by definition, is a huge variable, and a totally different delivery method.

Now, you *could* test headlines and stuff on web pages, and then use the best headline in your direct mail package, but there's no guarantee that the best web headline will automatically be the best direct mail headline.

Will you be able to get the same demographics from your online testing as you will from your offline testing??? Unlikely.

If you want to get the best package for selling through direct mail, then you'll have to conduct low level tests using... direct mail.

If you rent 5000 names remember that you don't have to mail them all at once.

You could mail 1000 names at a time, and have five different variations. When you've finished you will then have a 'winner' from those 5 different packages.

Then rent another 5000 names and if the 'winner' is still giving back the same kind of response rates, then you know you can rent 25, 50, or 100 thousand names.

But always assume that when you roll-out big you will lessen your response rate. That's because the list owner will fill his list with crap names to bulk it up for the roll-out. List owners are liars, and list brokers are liars too. In most cases though you'll get good names if you're doing a 5000 test.

Just my 2p worth...