Testing your marketing tactics is the only real way to get better. You must try something that you think will work while always trying to prove something else will work better.

Here’s a quick example of some testing of an online tactic. I try my best to get folks to sign-up for my weekly email newsletter. It’s a part of my overall trust building and education process.

I have an email newsletter sign-up form on most of web pages – a pretty standard practice. I tested three sign-up routines to see which pulled the most subscribers.

1) Form simply resides in the left sidebar and promotes the newsletter
2) Form drops in and offers free information for sign-up
3) Sticky note drops in and offers free information for sign-up

I was not surprised that options 2 and 3 outpaced the static option 1, but I was surprised that option 3 produced twice as many sign-up as option 2 with essentially the same offer and mechanism but a more creative delivery tool. (you can see the tactic in action at www.ducttapemarketing.com)

While some people dislike the pop over technology, and it can certainly be abused, there’s no arguing it’s effectiveness in getting attention. The key, however, is that you have something valuable worth getting attention over and you make the offer as simple and unobtrusive as possible.

I use a service called AdImpact for the pop overs and I suspect some of the results are do to the somewhat unique creative, but I will use this for now and keep testing for even better results.