To grow your business you are going to need to test new marketing channels.  Many companies struggle to develop, execute, and measure useful marketing tests and this leads to wasted money and opportunity.  There are many things to think about as you consider a marketing test:

• What does success look like?  
• How much can I afford to spend on a test?
• How am I going to measure the results and how will I know if the test works?
• If my test works, what will the result be?
• How large of a test do I need to run in order to overcome the normal variation in my business?
• How long do I need to run a test in order to see a result?

Hiring a fractional or part time CMO would be greatly beneficial if you don't have experience setting up tests of new marketing channels. They will be able to help you answer the above questions and more so you can focus on the results!

Will you be Able to 'See' Success?

When you approach a marketing test think about what success looks like first.  This will help you determine how to set up the test so that you see a result - positive or negative.  After all, the point of a test is to give you information on a new channel, spend level, etc.  A 'failed' test is nearly as valuable as a successful one.  The only true failure from a testing perspective is a test that provides no new information or is inconclusive.    

For example, let's say you want to test radio as a new channel to attract customers.  You have talked to an advertising representative and you have learned that you can run $25,000 worth of ads in Boston over 4 weeks at a cost of $15 per thousand impressions which would give you a little over 1.6 million impressions.
Sounds great!  But if you look at the numbers you will see that you will never be able to figure out if this test actually worked:

• 1.6 Million impressions will lead to about 650-700 web site visitors.  Based on our experience across a number of media tests it takes about 2,500 media impressions to generate a single website visitor.
• These 650-700 site visitors will yield about 7 or 8 new paid purchases or about 65-70 new free accounts based on typical conversion rates.
• This test runs over 4 weeks so that is only about 2 paid customers or about 15-20 free customers per week

Unless your site has very low traffic you are unlikely to see that increase even though it is limited to the Boston area. The key to a successful marketing test is to concentrate your efforts so that you are most likely to see a result and spend enough to maximize your chances of seeing a response.  

In this example, we would be more likely to see a result if the same spend was over a single week as opposed to 4 weeks, but that would have introduced other issues as the test period would not be long enough.  This is why there is typically a minimum amount that you need to spend to test any given marketing channel.  

How to Proceed from Here

Reach out to us to learn how to plan, execute and measure marketing tests that will help you grow your business.  This Google Sheet  shows how we approach online and offline marketing tests.  You will notice that our approach is geo-targeted and that the example is set up for an offline media test.  However, the same approach works with online channels such as Facebook or Adwords - especially if you have doubts about the attribution of the advertising platform.

Mike Morris is the founder of Kettle Hole Partners. When he is not trying to figure out mathematical models for marketing and customer acquisition he is probably riding his bike.