One of the many tools available that I absolutely love is Amember from CGI-Central. Amember not only manages my membership sites, it also handles digital product sales, delivery, and protection.

For instance, it protects download pages, offers backend sales and automation, allows protection of “external” folders and files, and it even comes with a built-in autoresponder. (And that’s just a partial list.)

I use Amember with WordPress for my membership sites, such as, for example, the all-new Success Chef University, among many others.

But Amember does have its flaws…

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One of my coaching students recently asked me whether it’s better to offer a free trial or a $1 limited time trial as an incentive to sign up for a paid newsletter subscription.

The answer involves the vital role of tracking and testing throughout your entire sales funnel.

Generally speaking, a free trial is likely to convert more visitors initially, but the $1 trial may be the better choice over the long term. Such generalizations have little place in business. The only way to determine the right answer for your business is to track and test the process from beginning to end.

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Even though we decided to postpone the multimedia copywriting seminar in southern California due to the fires there, my friend, copywriter David Garfinkel, asked me about it:

“(One of my coaching students) asked if you will share detailed test results like what to say vs. what not to say, what to wear in video, and other nitty-gritty like that, at your seminar when you reschedule it. Those would be excellent points to cover for a serious direct marketer. Anything you’d like me to tell him?”

Valid question. So here’s the answer I gave him, along with a few tips…

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Writing copy seems to bring out the perfectionist in everyone. It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re writing a short letter, long letter, emails, or anything else. Before you publish your copy for the whole world to see, you want to make sure every word is perfect.

Such careful attention is a good thing. Making a sale is a fragile process. Sometimes a single word can make or break your promotion.

Let me give you a real example.

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One of the reasons I’ve been quiet lately is that I’ve been working with my associate, John Tanner, for the worldwide re-release of my thesaurus software. (But it’s no longer just a thesaurus! It’s a lot more…)

The software, initially called "PowerWords Generator," was a tool that scanned your copy, searched for and highlighted words that needed spicing up with better, more powerful and picturesque “action words.”

(These are also known as "power words," which is a term coined by my friend and top copywriter John Carlton.)

It’s more than just a simple thesaurus. For example, a dentist doesn’t create whiter teeth. She creates brighter smiles. A real estate agent doesn’t sell houses. He sell homes. An accounting software doesn’t help you to surpass your competition. It helps you to conquer it.

Split-tests show, time and time again, that by simply changing a few words to better, more vivid, impactful and picturesque words, you can generate dramatic boosts in conversion rates.

But that software is gone. It no longer exists. And here’s why…

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Interesting event going on at James Brausch’s blog. He did a contest a few weeks ago asking people to submit their headlines for a software he created, which he would split-test and post rankings from time to time.

I own Glyphius, the software in question, and decided not only to participate in the contest for fun, but also to use Glyphius as well to help me.

Each and every week, Brausch reported his findings, which he based on visitor value. Four times now over the past month, the top 5 headlines were posted, including the names of the submitters, the copy of their headlines that won, and the resulting visitor value for each headline.

My name NEVER came up. And understandably, there are some pretty good copywriters in that contest. Some of their headlines are fantastic. Personally, I didn’t participate to win. I did it for fun, and to prove the power of Glyphius more than anything. (Not to mention helping James out, who’s a friend and a fanatical tester, too.)

Well, I got a little surprise this morning…

Split-testing is the simple process of splitting your audience into reading two or more versions of your copy (whether it’s your website, salesletter, email, etc), to determine which version pulls the best.

I’m a big fan of testing. And I teach it as much as I can, as I believe 99% of marketers out there do not test at all. It’s a shame, because they’re leaving so much money on the table.

I applaud those people who do test. But in some forums of late, a few people reveal their own test results while making claims they are universally applicable.

First off, I always recommend you test everything first. Never take any test result as gospel. Even mine. Because only a handful of test results, if any, are statistically significant enough to be truly portable to other offers or markets.

So, you’re probably scratching your head, wondering:

“What good are test results, then?”

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