What is A/B testing?

A/B testing or split testing is as it sounds an experiment where you test

two different versions of a Landing Page simultaneously. It’s basically
nothing more than the application of a scientific method to your online
marketing efforts.

A/B testing is the disciplined application of regular testing to ensure

you’ll have the best version of your Landing Page optimized for
conversions. So, as you’ve read, A/B testing or split-testing allows you
to optimize your website or landing page for conversions, or in other
words, the process of transforming a visitor into a customer.

Why should I run A/B tests on my landing pages?

A/B testing offers online marketers a host of potential benefits

including a lower bounce rate, higher conversion rates, and most
importantly, more sales. When you conduct A/B testing, your
customers and page visitors are giving you a valuable gift; they are
telling you what they like and also don’t like about your online
marketing efforts.

The beauty of online marketing is that you can measure and improve
every aspect of your strategy. It doesn’t matter if your results are “in
the tank” or your campaigns are soaring sky high. You can improve
them if you conduct A/B tests consistently and if you implement new
changes accordingly.
How to do A/B testing
Guidelines for Effective A/B Testing

1. Run one test at a time - Testing more than one thing at a time
muddles up the results. If you A/B test an email campaign that
directs to a landing page at the same time that you’re A/B testing
that landing page, your results can get muddled pretty easily. How
would you know which change caused the increase in leads?
2. Test one variable at a time - Same principle as above. In order to
evaluate how effective an element on your page is, you need to
isolate that variable in your A/B test. Test one element at a time.
3. You can A/B test the entire element - While you certainly can
(and should) test a different button color or a background shade,
you should also consider making your entire landing page, call-to-
action or email a variable. Instead of testing single design
elements, such as headlines and images, design two completely
different pages and test them against each other. Now you’re
working on a higher level. This type of testing yields the biggest
improvements, so consider starting with it before you continue
your optimization with smaller tweaks.
4. Test minor changes, too - Although it’s common to think that big,
sweeping changes can increase your lead generation numbers,
the small details are often just as important. While creating your
tests, remember that even a simple change like switching the
image on your landing page or the color of a CTA can drive big
improvements. In fact, these sorts of changes are usually much
easier to measure than the bigger ones.
5. Measure as far down the funnel as possible - Sure, your A/B test
might have a positive impact on your landing page conversion
rate, but how about your sales numbers? A/B testing can have a
significant effect on your bottom line. You may even see that a
 landing page that converted fewer prospects produced more
sales. As you create your A/B test, consider how it affects metrics
such as clickthrough rates, leads, traffic-to-lead conversion rates,
and demo requests.
6. Set up control & treatment - In any experiment, you need to keep
a version of the original element you’re testing. When conducting
A/B tests, set up your unaltered version as your “control” -- the
landing page you would normally use. From there, build
variations, or “treatments” -- the landing page you’ll test against
your control. For example, if you are wondering whether including
a testimonial on a landing page would make a difference, set up
your control page with no testimonials. Then create your variation
with a testimonial.
7. Decide what you want to test - There are a number of variables
you can decide to test. You don’t have to limit yourself to testing
only images or text size. Look at the various elements on your
marketing resources and their possible alternatives for design,
wording, and layout. In fact, some of the areas you can test might
not be instantly recognizable. For instance, you can test different
target audiences, timing, alignment between an email and a
landing page, and so on.
8. Split your sample group randomly - In order to achieve conclusive
results, you need to test with two or more audiences that are
equal. With HubSpot, we automatically split traffic to your
variations so that each variation reaches a random sampling of
visitors.
9. Test at the same time - Timing plays a significant role in your
marketing campaign’s results, be it time of day, day of the week,
or month of the year. If you were to run Test A during one month
and Test B a month later, you wouldn’t know whether the
changed response rate was a result of the different template or
the different month. A/B testing requires you to run the two or
 more variations at the same time. Without simultaneous testing,
you may be left second-guessing your results.
10. Decide on necessary significance before testing - Before
you launch your test, think about how significant your results
should be in order for you to decide that the change should be
made to your website or email campaign. Set the statistical
significance goal for your winning variation before you start
testing. Not sure what to shoot for? Try somewhere in the 97-99%
range.

Selecting landing pages after A/B testing

After running your test, consider why the winning variation performed
better and use that information when running another test and building
future landing pages. In addition, you can continue to run additional
tests on other elements of the page which can lead to greater overall
performance. With each additional test you will learn more about your
audience and be able to setup a high-performing landing page based on
all of the lessons learned from testing.

Steps in leads nurturing

Lead nurturing focuses on educating qualified sales leads who are not
yet ready to buy. The key to successful lead nurturing is to deliver
content that’s valuable enough to keep your audience engaged. If you
do it right, lead nurturing can help you build a strong brand and
solution preference in your prospects long before they’re actively
engaged in a buying process.”
5 Steps to Lead Nurturing Success

Step 1. Understand your buyer

This is without a doubt the most crucial step of all. You know that
prospects go through stages - what has traditionally been called the
funnel.

What you also need to know is what those stages are and where your
prospective buyers are in relation to them.

Interviewing your customers is a great way to get deep insights into the
needs and processes at work when someone is considering whether or
not to buy what you’re selling.

This will also help you to create buyer personas for better targeting of
content.

Step 2. Discover and decide on what motivates

your buyers
Use data from previous campaigns to inform future activity. By
analysing past marketing activity you can begin to establish which
approaches, forms of content and messages had the greatest and the
least resonance.

Pick up on how many leads moved through the stages and what it was
that prompted them to take the next step. Feed these insights into your
content strategy and you will be on the road to creating an optimal lead
nurturing pathway.
Step 3. Decide, what is the ideal customer
experience?
Once you have created a lead nurturing pathway that you believe best
fits your prospects’ buying process, you’ll need to test and troubleshoot
to identify potential pitfalls and sources of friction.

Can you better personalise the experience using information you have
about individual prospects?

Their interactions and behaviours should influence and shape the flow
of communications delivered.

Eventually, you should emerge with an optimised lead nurturing

structure built through a series of rational, insight-based decisions.

Don’t forget to document and share the reasoning behind it all, so your
team and others can have the benefit of your good work.

Step 4. Plan your lead nurturing process

Timing is of the essence in any lead nurturing pathway. Marketing
activities and interactions need to be well-timed.

Too frequent and you risk overloading prospects - too sparse and you
risk losing their attention.

It’s also essential to be clear about what happens next. If they get
through the lead nurturing pathway without becoming a qualified lead,
do you have a backup plan?

Or are they simply consigned to the dead leads pile?

Step 5. Automate your
communications
Begin with an automated welcome campaign sent out to each prospect
as they enter your database.

You can start delivering educational information right from the off, and
commence building that all-important relationship.

Communicate the most crucial things you want them to know, and also
think about getting some information from them as well.

Speed your way to lead nurturing success

Segmenting your prospects by attributes such as job role, industry or

sales stage will help you tailor your content for maximum resonance
and engagement. And nurturing is useful when applied to customers, as
well as prospects, to help streamline their experiences.

Personalisation is another key strategy, and you can build your

knowledge of the customer to help you do this by progressive profiling.

This involves asking for incremental pieces of information at different

stages, in exchange for useful content.

The more you build a more defined picture of who your customer is,
the better you will be able to nurture them.
Converting leads into sales
The majority of your leads won’t automatically convert into sales by
simply being sent through your conversion funnel. It will often require
additional help to produce the conversion. Here are eight tips to help
your business convert more leads into sales.

1. Offer an incentive

Name one person that doesn’t like free stuff. Offering a free gift or
providing a special time sensitive discount is a great way to push leads
to convert. The discount doesn’t have to be something outrageous and
the free gift doesn’t have to have a high monetary value. The average
consumer simply can’t pass up a free offer or a limited-time discount.

2. Ask for the sale

How is asking for the sale ground breaking marketing advice? It’s not —
it’s actually common sense, but something that many businesses just
don’t do. Ask your leads if they are ready to purchase and watch how
many reply “yes.” They became a lead because they were interested in
what your business offers. Food for thought: if your business doesn’t
ask for the sale your competitor will.

3. Dangle the potential ROI carrot

If your product or service has the potential to increase your lead’s

return on investment, then make sure you remind them. This is asking
them, “So, when are you ready to increase your revenue?” Reminding
them that you are offering a solution that will help them make more
money will often push them to convert.

4. Develop a great FAQ page on your website

Many leads won’t convert because they have questions that they need
answered before they pull the trigger. Answer common questions that
your leads might have and make it prominent on your website. Talk to
your sales team and customer service reps to put together a list of
common frequently asked questions.

5. Set a time limit

Establish a “no communication” deadline to remove unresponsive leads

from your marketing funnel. Example: “We have not heard from you in
30 days. Even though this will be our final communication, please feel
free to reach out to us in the future if you have any questions.” This will
often cause a reaction — and if it doesn’t then it prevents your sales
team from wasting valuable time and energy on a dead lead.

6. Simple follow-up

A quick follow-up email or phone call asking your leads if they have any
additional questions will often get them back into purchase mode. This
is an effective way of quickly converting leads into sales before a lot of
time passes. My company immediately contacts all of the leads that are
generated through our website and then we also follow-up with them a
few days later, offering to answer any questions that they might have.
The simple follow-up will close a large percentage of leads for virtually
every industry.

7. Make sure your email marketing stands out

There is a good chance that your leads are being marketed to by

competitors as well, so you need to make sure that your emails stand
out from the overly promotional emails that are likely to be flooding
their inboxes. Include things like fun facts about your company or your
local area — and make sure that your emails don’t read like overly
aggressive and pushy sales letters. Clever emails really grab the
attention of your leads and make your company stand out.

8. Ask your leads questions

If you ask your leads a question they will often reply. Something such
as, “It has been over a week since we have heard from you. Have you
had a chance to go over the materials and make a decision?” is a great
way to apply the pressure while also opening up the dialogue to
discover additional questions or concerns the lead might have.

Creating lead nurturing strategy

Lead nurturing is all about sharing relevant, personalized and targeted
information to ensure that you stay on top of the buyer’s mind. In order
to do this, you need to get a good overview of what types of buyers you
have and what kind of information they need in each phase of the
buying process.

You can do this by:

 Interviewing prospects and/or customers

 Interviewing sales team
 Mining in-house database to identify characteristics of best
and/or worst customers
 Interviewing customer service
 Using keyword research to identify topics of interest
 Monitoring activity on social media sites

Once you’ve gathered this information, you can create personas which
mirror your prospective customers.
Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on
data about demographics & online behavior, along with educated
speculation about their histories, motivations & concerns.

They help us to understand our prospective customers better, and

make it easier for us to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviors,
and concerns of different groups.

Understanding lead funnel & Sales Funnel

You’ve heard this before – Marketing is from Venus and Sales is from
Mars because the two can never agree. Sales are always pointing the
finger at Marketing and saying, “You don’t give me enough leads.”
Marketing always shoots back, “Yes, we do. You just don’t follow up on
the leads.” And the dilemma goes on and on.

The first step that must be taken is that marketing and sales first have
to agree on the definition of a lead. How do you begin defining a lead?
We say that there are two types of leads. There are the marketing leads
and there are the sales leads. Marketing leads are at the top of the
funnel and Sales leads are lower in the funnel. Both are leads. It’s just a
question of what you do with which lead and who owns what lead.

We defined a lead as someone who has responded to our marketing

communications, whether it is from a marketing campaign, paid search
campaign or direct mailing. We allocate one person per country who is
responsible for logging the leads and qualifying them.

If the lead is ready to enter into a sales process, then that lead is sent to
a sales person to handle in the CRM. If the lead isn’t ready to enter into
a sales process, then that lead is owned by Marketing and entered into
a lead nurturing process where the lead is kept warm until she became
more sales-ready.

Keep in mind that every business can or will define a lead differently.
The above is just an example of how you can do it.