Basics of How to Test a Lead-Generation Campaign

All lead-generation campaigns need to be tested to make your campaigns better over time. By testing, you also gain insight into your programs — you'll know what's working and what isn't.

A marketing team that doesn't test often is a marketing team that is blind to what their leads are doing. So what do you do? Build testing into your campaign creation and measurement process, and make sure testing is ingrained in each and every team member's minds. Each of your marketers should test his campaigns on a regular basis, or you can even have someone on staff who specializes in (or who highly enjoys) testing.

Testing in lead generation and marketing is akin to the scientific method:

1. Communicate a question.

2. Hypothesize the answer.

3. Formulate your predictions.

4. Test those predictions.

5. Analyze the results.

Marketers typically use a few standard testing types to test their campaigns. You can test just about any aspect of a campaign — from channel used, to copy created, to subject line, time of day sent, and more. So get creative with what you're trying to find out. The more you know, the more you grow!

Depending on what you want to test, you can use

• Your marketing automation platform

• A solution that specializes in testing, such as Optimizely

• Google Analytics to track changes you have made

In some cases, you may not even need additional testing help. For instance, if you post two messages on a social channel, you can track yourself which post has more shares and engagement.