James Brausch recommends testing each paragraph of your copy vs. a blank variable. This will help to see which paragraphs help to make the sale and which hurt. This can be difficult with traditional sales letters, but it’s very easy to do with bullets.

I’m testing bullets right now on one campaign. For the test I pit a blank against several bulleted benefit for each bullet. This might be an example…

Variable 1…

[blank]

Variable 2…

• Build a solid, profitable web business on just 3 hours a day.

Variable 3…

• Generate a full time income working part time.

Out of 30 bullets, the blank is in first place a little more than 1/3 of the time. And when it’s not in first place, it’s usually making a strong showing. This wouldn’t surprise James Brausch one bit, who generally believes shorter sales copy is best.

Because bullets cover so many different appeals of your product, the data can be very helpful in determining which appeals convince the reader to buy most… and which “appeals” are actually HURTING the sale.

 I recently asked Michel Fortin for some advice on testing sales pages. His advice was great, as always:

When I think about elements to test and that convert the best, the two most important ones are the headline and the offer.

But other than that, I think of the AIDA formula. That is, anything that helps to draw attention, create interest, increase desire and drive action are elements I want to test.

For example, when it comes to attention, think of the things that help stop people from scanning/surfing, and forces them to start reading. From headlines to pictures, from pop-ups to video, from different colored backgrounds to different colored headlines.

Martin Russell recently asked me this question…

Is there a way (for Muvar to test) the type of bullet for the page and have all bullets show up with that one look?

It was partly in response to James Brausch’s post about Bullets. James noticed that putting bullets in front of many of his sentences improved response.

Martin wants to test what type of bullet would work the best. An arrow? A square graphic? Maybe just an asterick? And when he tests it, he wants ALL the bullets on the page to show up the same way.

There’s a way to do that. But first, I’m not sure if that’s the most accurate way to run a test.

I’m assuming Martin’s fear would be that the sales page would look ridiculous if Muvar chose the graphic for each bullet independently. And Martin wants some uniformity. I usually do the same thing, especially for things like subheads.

James might not agree with that. I’m really not sure, his scientific method is better than mine. But if you read the post you’ll notice he allowed his sales page to look somewhat ridiculous while Muvar discovered which sentences did better with a bullet in front of it and which didn’t.

So allowing each bullet to be independently chosen may be the most accurate solution.

That said, there is a way to add uniformity while using Muvar. It’s done through creating variables for CSS style sheets in your Muvar Template. The style sheets will set the formatting for the entire page. That’s how I’m able to keep the same color for subheads (H2 tags) and other variables when using Muvar.

To add uniformity to bullets, just set the style for the (ul) tag. And then use the (ul) and (li) tags to create bullets. Here’s how it’s done…

Warning: Because I’m trying to demonstrate how to use HTML in this post, I’ve changed the >’s to )’s and <’s to (’s. You’ll need to change them back in order to use the code.

You’d add this code to your HTML page in the “Head” section:

(style type=”text/css”)
UL {list-style-image: url(bullet.gif)}
(/style)

Of course, the ‘bullet.gif’ will need to be changed to whatever the name of your bullet is.

This is the variable that you change to make different bullets. You can make several different versions of this variable with bullet1.gif, bullet2.gif, etc.

(And remember, it has to go in the “head” section of your page. So you have to consider that when making your Muvar Template.)

Then when it’s time to add bullets to your sales page, you add them like this…

(ul)

(li)Copywriting(/li)

(li)Template(/li)

(li)Scarcity(/li)

(/ul)

And that gives you this result…

• Copywriting
• Template
• Scarcity

That’s all there is to it.

Now, what do you think? Do you think it’s better to have uniform bullets? …Or do you think Muvar should figure out the appropriate graphic for each bullet?

Derrick asked a question about Muvar in a comment…

How do you edit a variable (if you’re not using it as the basis for a new version)? If I make a formatting mistake and don’t notice it before hitting ‘Add It’, the only way I’ve found to correct the error is by adding a new variable to the Template and making the correction there. Am I doing something wrong?

The answer is, there is no way to edit a variable within the Muvar “control panel” area. James left this out on purpose. His position is that it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. If the mistake hurts the sale, Muvar will naturally take care of it by not displaying it often.

At first I didn’t like this answer, and told James so. Then I thought about it more, and thought he might be right. But I’ve FLIP-FLOPPED again.

There are some mistakes you can make in Muvar that I think need to be fixed. One of those mistakes is an order button that doesn’t work.

Of course, you’ve got to be a bit of a dufus to put a non-working order link into Muvar, but I did it recently. In my mind, there’s no reason to test to see how a failed order link will effect sales. So I needed to find a way to fix it.

I did it with my FTP program. I logged in to the public html area and clicked on the “data” folder. Here you’ll find files containing all the variables you put into Muvar. They all start with “var”, followed by the name of the variable, followed by a letter.

Most of the time the file you’ll want ends with “b”. But you might look in “a” if you don’t find it.

All you have to do is edit this file and reload it to the server. I was able to fix a quick HTML mistake on the order button, and had everything working in under 3 minutes.

There are other reasons to edit variables in Muvar. One would be if you made a mistake in the copy that could get you in legal trouble.

For example, say you’re making a claim that you made $1,134.00 in March. But because you’re human and sometimes make mistakes, you accidently slipped in an additional digit: $11,134.00.

If you’re claiming to make an extra $10,000.00, you’ve got a serious problem! Not only is it dishonest, but you COULD get in trouble with the law.

You simply can’t let that variable show up again. You must fix it.

Another example would be if you include time-limited bonuses to give visitors an incentive to buy now. After the time’s up, you’ve got to take down the variable.

Any more reasons you can think of?

As for fixing the Template as you described.  I tried this first as well.  But Muvar started acting strangely when I did.  It could have been for a different reason.  But I think actually editing the file in Muvar is a cleaner way to fix the problem.

Derrick asked a question about Muvar in a comment…

How do you edit a variable (if you’re not using it as the basis for a new version)? If I make a formatting mistake and don’t notice it before hitting ‘Add It’, the only way I’ve found to correct the error is by adding a new variable to the Template and making the correction there. Am I doing something wrong?

The answer is, there is no way to edit a variable within the Muvar “control panel” area. James left this out on purpose. His position is that it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. If the mistake hurts the sale, Muvar will naturally take care of it by not displaying it often.

At first I didn’t like this answer, and told James so. Then I thought about it more, and thought he might be right. But I’ve FLIP-FLOPPED again.

There are some mistakes you can make in Muvar that I think need to be fixed. One of those mistakes is an order button that doesn’t work.

Of course, you’ve got to be a bit of a dufus to put a non-working order link into Muvar, but I did it recently. In my mind, there’s no reason to test to see how a failed order link will effect sales. So I needed to find a way to fix it.

I did it with my FTP program. I logged in to the public html area and clicked on the “data” folder. Here you’ll find files containing all the variables you put into Muvar. They all start with “var”, followed by the name of the variable, followed by a letter.

Most of the time the file you’ll want ends with “b”. But you might look in “a” if you don’t find it.

All you have to do is edit this file and reload it to the server. I was able to fix a quick HTML mistake on the order button, and had everything working in under 3 minutes.

There are other reasons to edit variables in Muvar. One would be if you made a mistake in the copy that could get you in legal trouble.

For example, say you’re making a claim that you made $1,134.00 in March. But because you’re human and sometimes make mistakes, you accidently slipped in an additional digit: $11,134.00.

If you’re claiming to make an extra $10,000.00, you’ve got a serious problem! Not only is it dishonest, but you COULD get in trouble with the law.

You simply can’t let that variable show up again. You must fix it.

Another example would be if you include time-limited bonuses to give visitors an incentive to buy now. After the time’s up, you’ve got to take down the variable.

Any more reasons you can think of?

As for fixing the Template as you described.  I tried this first as well.  But Muvar started acting strangely when I did.  It could have been for a different reason.  But I think actually editing the file in Muvar is a cleaner way to fix the problem.

Do you Split Test or use multivariate testing on your sales copy? Most people don’t, but that’s a terrible thing. Let’s take a look at some numbers.

Let’s say you’re using google adwords to get traffic to a squeeze page. The squeeze page asks for the visitor’s email address before taking them to the sales letter. Ok, the numbers… We’re going to try to keep the numbers simple so that the math is more clear.

Let’s say your Adwords ads are getting 1 click for every 100 impressions, and that’s leading to 1000 visitors per day.

Your squeeze page is capturing the email of 20% of those 1000 visitors (200) and taking them to the sales page.

The sales copy is converting 2% of those 200 visitors in to buyers. That makes 4 buyers total. And let’s say you make $100 from each sale, so $400.

How much more cash do you think you could make after simple split testing or multivariate testing? Let’s take a look.

It’s quite conceivable that with some testing, you could double each of the numbers above. 2 out of every 100 impressions is not high for an Adwords ad. 40% is very reasonable for a squeeze page. And 4% is certainly achievable for a sales page. The key is to test and continually improve your ad.

Here’s how the modest test results would effect your income.

Instead of 1000 visitors from Adwords, you’d receive 2000 visitors.

Of those 2000 visitors, 40% (or 800) would submit their email address on the squeeze page and make it to the sales letter.

Of those 800, 4% would buy. That makes for 32 sales, or $3,200 in profit.

So just by doing a little testing, you were able to take your business from $400 per day to $3,200 per day.

If you have a product and a sales page now, is there any activity you could perform today that could match the profit increase of adding testing to your sales process?

I recommend two products for testing your sales copy. My Split Test software at http://www.easysplittest.com and James Brausch’s multivariate testing software at http://www.muvar2007.com.

$97, $95, $100. Three different prices that aren’t too far apart in dollar amount, but can have a large effect on the dollar amount in your bank account.

The truth is, the actual price of your product is a major testing factor. Those 3 different prices above may swing the number of sales you get by a surprising percentage rate. I’m not going to get in to specifics because the data coming in to me now is from a client. But here are some things to think about when testing price.

1. Don’t just test lower prices. Most of my clients want to test lower prices when I suggest a price test. It’s good to test lower prices, but stop doubting your product. It’s possible that more people may want to buy your product if you give it a HIGHER price. A price says something about your product to the customer. If you price it too low, they may suspect it’s low quality and pass on it. Raising the price may convince MORE people to buy.

2. Test the “dollar” digits first. Some people like to test $99.97 versus $99.95. Instead, I’d test $97 versus $95. Michel Fortin backed this up when he told me numbers on the dollar side of the decimal point provide the most answers and profit increases.

3. Don’t just stick with “7″. Glyphius, a software that analyzes profitable copy, HATES the number “7.” I don’t have stats to back that up, but I do have promising results with numbers other than 7. So don’t just test $57, $67, $97. Mix it up and test $57 versus $55, $59 and more. If you believe “7″ has a psychological impact, you must believe other numbers have an impact as well. Find out for yourself what digits are best.

4. Pay attention to visitor value over conversion rate. On one test I’m conducting one price is solidly beating a price $30 higher. The problem is, the 20% higher conversion doesn’t beat out the 33% higher profit from each sale. So consider getting less sales at a higher profit. Unless…

5. Unless, you have backend products that are selling. If you can get more customers at a lower price and have backend products to sell them, you have to factor that in to the above equation. Can the backend sales make up for that initial loss in profit?

If you’re not currently testing, I recommend http://www.muvar2007.com.

A client from my testing service recently asked me why I had taken the P.S. out of his sales letter.

If you’ve read many sales letters you know the P.S. is a popular technique, so it is understandable that he would ask.

The thing is, I didn’t take out the P.S. Muvar did.

Muvar is a multivariate testing software that not only pits several different variables against each other up and down the sales page… it also makes brilliant decisions as to how often to show each variable. This results in a rapid, statistical increase in conversion.

With my client’s sales letter, Muvar found his original P.S. to be hurting sales and decided to stop showing it as often. Because of Muvar’s decisions like this, combined with my copywriting input, this client’s conversion rate has increased 39% in his first month with my service.

(If you’d like to join my multivariate testing service to work on getting the same results for your sales pages, leave a comment and I’ll shoot you an email.)

Sometimes when people think about multivariate testing, they think Taguchi. That’s not exactly accurate. Muvar is a multivariate testing software and does not use the Taguchi method.

Instead, James Brausch wrote his own algorithm designed to outperform Taguchi. Each time a sale is made, Muvar weights each of the variables that were displayed appropriately. Meaning those variables are now more likely to appear when a visitor hits the page.

That “weight” is something that James and his team has tested extensively. They’re constantly looking to improve the algorithm and get the fastest improvements possible… by testing the algorithm just like you would a sales page.

For that reason, I highly recommend using Muvar. I also highly recommend hiring me to run your multivariate testing for you.

A while back James sent me 10 copies of Muvar 2008 and Testivar 2008 and encouraged people to hire me to run their tests. Right now I currently have 3 spots open for the service.

You can contact me with questions about the service by leaving a comment.

I use and recommend Muvar for multivariate testing. I’ve done quite a bit of work with it for myself and clients.

The biggest problem with Muvar, for me, has been timeouts. Muvar needs to compile quite a bit of information. And the more visitors you get, the longer it takes to compile that information. But there’s another factor that can cause timeouts, and that’s how many variables you use.

I bragged to this blog some time ago that my latest Muvar Template had 140 variables. I now know this is NOT a good idea. So my latest Template has just 2 variables…

Overall
Page

This basically sets up Muvar as a split tester, and can be a valuable way to get information. I can add 5 different versions of a sales letter in to this variable and see which page wins out. Then modify that page a bit, and add it as a new Page variable.

This strategy has it’s place, but obviously is not the most powerful way to use Muvar. Another Template I’m using right now looks like this…

Overall
html-b
deck
lead
proof
educate
bullets
stimulate
testimonials
price.close
ps
html-a

The actual copy only has 9 elements, even though the copy is about 12 pages. This helps to keep timeouts to a minimum, but lets you mix and match variables like the multivariate software intends you to.