Testing Tuesday: A weekly series on how to get the most of direct-response fundraising tests
There are two very different types of testing in direct-response fundraising. If you are able to test, you should be doing both:
Test big
Test whole new packages against current packages. New offers. Completely different packaging. Wild new ideas.
That's where breakthroughs come from.
The downside of testing big is that it is more likely to fail than to succeed. The bigger you test, the more likely you'll get a bad result.
But it's in that danger area where you will find breakthroughs. It's important to spend some of your energy there.
Test small
Test careful, incremental changes, where you change one variable and keep everything else the same.
You're unlikely achieve breakthroughs this way, but small improvements matter too. An 8% jump here and a 4% boost there really add up over time.
When you test big and test small, you maximize your efforts and build a sustainable, always-improving fundraising program.
