18 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
18 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

If something is working.. Should you change it?

by JeffersonB
16 replies
If something is working should you change it to what generally is a better way of working your business?

It could either go the right way and boost sales or kill your business..

Is the risk worth taking?
#change #working
  • Profile picture of the author Solidsnake
    Banned
    This is one of the top reasons why most people fail... INCONSISTENCY..
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78236].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Kyle Tully
    Depends what you're talking about.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78237].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author RichardPars
    If it aint broke don't fix it
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78238].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author TOPGUN08
      Banned
      [DELETED]
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78240].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author JeffersonB
        Sorry, i should have been more specific.

        Landing pages. I promote generally without collecting and building a list, but now i have totally changed the landing page collecting emails... 9 since yesterday.. but i'm not sure how it is going to affect my sales.

        Will it confuse my customers?
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78245].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Solidsnake
          Banned
          Originally Posted by JeffersonB View Post

          Sorry, i should have been more specific.

          Landing pages. I promote generally without collecting and building a list, but now i have totally changed the landing page collecting emails... 9 since yesterday.. but i'm not sure how it is going to affect my sales.

          Will it confuse my customers?
          You are in the right way... I don't think it can affect sales negatively...
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78256].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author Kelvin Brown
            When it comes to marketing and you have the time, patience and tools to track results, then by all means change it. BUT.... change only one thing at a time. And leave the change long enough to see if things improve or not.

            If your results dip, put things back the way they were, and testing something else.

            If your results improve, take note of the change, keeping your backup of what worked before, incase it was a fluke.

            Some people refuse to make changes, because they don't care to take the time to do proper testing.

            And proper testing is a must if you are changing something that is already proven to work.

            Kelvin
            Signature

            Kelvin Brown

            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78260].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Neil Morgan
          I just went through this dilemma recently. My main site had been working well for years and the results were consistent and therefore measurable.

          So my dilemma was to change it or not.

          For a while I had resisted the 'I want to change it' thoughts simply because it was working well. Sometimes when you've worked with a site or a product for a while you get 'fed up' with it and feel it needs to be changed. But that's definitely not the same as it NEEDING to be changed or wanting to change it to achieve better results.

          And that's what I decided - if I was going to change it, it had to perform much better than before.

          Also, I knew that I would need to understand how I would know if my changes had worked. I also understood that I would need to let the new site run for a while before I would know if the changes had been successful. A month seemed about right in my case.

          The way I chose to measure the success of the changes was by monitoring of visitor value. For those that don't know, visitor value is the amount of profit you make from a known number of visitors, divided by the number of unique visitors.

          Here's a fictitious example:

          Your conversion rate is 1% meaning you get one sale per 100 unique visitors. That sale is for a $100 product and the cost of the sale (eg processing charges etc) is $5.

          So the profit from those 100 visitors is $95, giving you a visitor value of $0.95 per visitor.

          Sidenote: Visitor value is similar but better than conversion rate when working out the success of your site. You know how much you can spend to get a visitor to your site. If you have multiple products on your site where conversion rate is fairly meaningless, it can be a good measure.

          So anyway, I have changed my site and indications are the visitor value is way up. But of course, this isn't by accident because the new version was designed to make that happen - and I can post the details on that if anyone is interested.

          Cheers,

          Neil
          Signature

          Easy email marketing automation without moving your lists.

          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78263].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author JeffersonB
            Originally Posted by Neil Morgan View Post

            I just went through this dilemma recently. My main site had been working well for years and the results were consistent and therefore measurable.

            So my dilemma was to change it or not.

            For a while I had resisted the 'I want to change it' thoughts simply because it was working well. Sometimes when you've worked with a site or a product for a while you get 'fed up' with it and feel it needs to be changed. But that's definitely not the same as it NEEDING to be changed or wanting to change it to achieve better results.

            And that's what I decided - if I was going to change it, it had to perform much better than before.

            Also, I knew that I would need to understand how I would know if my changes had worked. I also understood that I would need to let the new site run for a while before I would know if the changes had been successful. A month seemed about right in my case.

            The way I chose to measure the success of the changes was by monitoring of visitor value. For those that don't know, visitor value is the amount of profit you make from a known number of visitors, divided by the number of unique visitors.

            Here's a fictitious example:

            Your conversion rate is 1% meaning you get one sale per 100 unique visitors. That sale is for a $100 product and the cost of the sale (eg processing charges etc) is $5.

            So the profit from those 100 visitors is $95, giving you a visitor value of $0.95 per visitor.

            Sidenote: Visitor value is similar but better than conversion rate when working out the success of your site. You know how much you can spend to get a visitor to your site. If you have multiple products on your site where conversion rate is fairly meaningless, it can be a good measure.

            So anyway, I have changed my site and indications are the visitor value is way up. But of course, this isn't by accident because the new version was designed to make that happen - and I can post the details on that if anyone is interested.

            Cheers,

            Neil
            Sounds good, i would like to know the details.

            Well done
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78266].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author JasonKing
              Why not split test!

              Keep A, the control, test B, a tweak. Send 50% to A, 50% to B. Keep the winner. Do it again.
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78272].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author Kyle Tully
                Originally Posted by JasonKing View Post

                Why not split test!

                Keep A, the control, test B, a tweak. Send 50% to A, 50% to B. Keep the winner. Do it again.
                Exactly, if it's something simple like an opt-in page then you just test the change.

                No need to throw out what's working chasing an unproven idea.

                You can simply send a small portion of your traffic to the new page and see if it performs better than the original.
                Signature
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78278].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author Neil Morgan
                  Good call on the split testing when the changes are small.

                  That said, I don't need to split test to know that a Porsche is better than a Ford Focus. Sometimes you can see a zillion things that you could do to increase the effectiveness of a site/page/email/article (or whatever).

                  Cheers,

                  Neil
                  Signature

                  Easy email marketing automation without moving your lists.

                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78408].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author Rob Canyon
                    Jason is on the money. Split-testing is the way to go.

                    In fact if you've got something working my good friend David Preston says don't you touch it.

                    When you hear the guru's talk about tweaking their sites. I'm sure they split-test the crap out of changes to something that's already working.

                    Yep, Split-testing is the way to go.

                    Don't trust your instincts, make smart business decisions as a result of the numbers presented to you, or that you collect.

                    Cheers,

                    Rob
                    Signature
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78580].message }}
                    • Profile picture of the author JeffersonB
                      Sounds good however i'm going from a full sales page > click order

                      to a landing then .. then sales then they can click order so it's kind of a major change. Unless you think there is a better way of doing it
                      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78694].message }}
                      • Profile picture of the author Neil Morgan
                        Why not talk us through your new process and the reasons for making those changes.

                        We may spot an obvious flaw!

                        Cheers,

                        Neil
                        Signature

                        Easy email marketing automation without moving your lists.

                        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78802].message }}
                      • Profile picture of the author Kyle Tully
                        Originally Posted by JeffersonB View Post

                        Sounds good however i'm going from a full sales page > click order

                        to a landing then .. then sales then they can click order so it's kind of a major change. Unless you think there is a better way of doing it
                        Just to clarify, you;re going from:

                        Salespage->Order
                        to
                        Squeeze->Salespage->Order

                        Is that right?

                        If so, that's a very simple split test to run.
                        Signature
                        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[80212].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author VinceNouvel
                Originally Posted by JasonKing View Post

                Why not split test!

                Keep A, the control, test B, a tweak. Send 50% to A, 50% to B. Keep the winner. Do it again.
                I just about to write about this one.. Testing is the way to go Jason...
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[80312].message }}

Trending Topics