Once you finishing scrambling around to find creative agencies, media placement firms, and Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) numbers for your target publications, you need to think about what a "good" ad should be.

Simply put, split testing is measuring a new idea or way to sell a product against a default that you know works.  You can apply split-testing to direct mail/email campaigns, Web sites, landing pages, etc.

Let’s take a Web site for example.  Other than looking pretty and making the marketing staff feel good about their “cool” Web site, the purpose of a Web site is to give visitors a good experience and deliver a good “conversion” rate – the ratio of visitors who click-through to detailed content pages to identify themselves and become “leads” to those who simply browse and remain anonymous visitors.

Sure your product “increases sales” or “decreases costs,” but how much?  Be explicit.  Use metrics.  How much does it increase sales?  How much does it reduce costs?  Be exact. The more specific your numbers, the more compelling and believable your value proposition will be.

Based on a review of current collateral fom high technology companies, overuse of the word "solution" stems from a number of factors:

• Lack of understanding product features:  Many times marketers don't fully understand the technology and cannot clearly articulate the features and benefits. 
• Lack of understanding of prospects' needs:  Often marketers have not done research to define the needs of their prospects.