Since the Internet Marketing Monitor opened its doors I've been highlighting success stories and reviewing case studies on a number of companies. The idea is to learn by example.  It's one thing to spout off a bunch of ideas and philosophies and tell people that they work.  It's quite another to put your money where your mouth is and showcase how and when they've worked.  That's one of the reasons I love MarketingSherpa:  they certainly show you the money (so to speak).

If you're just joining the Internet Marketing Monitor, you might have missed some of the earlier case studies.  So to reintroduce some previous case study results to new readers, and to highlight the common themes that they all share, I'm going to pull the best of the best together.  You'll notice several trends amongst these companies.  All of them were able to publish success stories because they followed one or more of three general tactics:

1. Test
2. Solicit Feedback
3. Think Outside the Box

Get out a notepad, grab a pen, and get ready to take notes as we review the best of the best case study success stories.  You can also click the company names to read our full review of the case study or success story.

Read on to see which case study success stories offer the most learning value that you can apply to your company.

Test, Test, and Test Again

eSylvan:  eSylvan knew its website was in desperate need of a redesign.  A lot of ideas were floating around so the company decided to do some multivariate testing with three different landing page designs.  In addition, they held panel discussions and in-person testing with the three redesigns.  Ultimately, they were able to optimize their landing page with a completely new look based on all the testing.

• Results:  70% increase in incoming calls; 50% increase in page views; 50-70% increase in conversion

Vivre:  Vivre wanted to increase its already successful email marketing campaigns.  So the company created 4 variations of its regular email creative and targeted each one at a different segment of the target audience.  Each campaign was tailored to specific needs and shopping habits of those customers.  They were able to learn three great ways to market to their customers and one way not to (which is just as valuable).

• Results:  Email open rate of 15-38%; 4-16% clickthrough rate; up to 9% conversion rate (varied by email campaign)

ParrotSecrets.com:  ParrotSecrets had a lot of variable to test.  If they had tested each variable separately, it'd have taken 24 years!  They were in a little bit of a hurry.  The website owners were close to selling off the company that was seeing over 80% of its visitors leaving within the first 30 seconds.  And with a conversion rate of 0.4%, ParrotSecrets was in desperate need of some testing.  So they used multivariate testing to rotate out 16 design variations of the landing page, each with a different focus and a different offer.  After some narrowing down and further testing, 2 best bet designs were selected.

• Results:  85% increase in revenue; 600% increase in newsletter conversion; 30% reduction in visitors bailing in less than 30 seconds

It's Not Enough To Get Feedback - You Have to Listen To It

Impromptu Gourmet:  Impromptu Gourmet was trying to branch out and expand its digital-only offering to a paper catalog.  Their first attempt was anything but successful.  So the company started soliciting feedback and holding discussion panels to find out what was so bad about their first catalog.  They discovered that their first attempt was too focused on individual items and customers were looking for the whole package.  After a redesign based on the feedback they received, Impromtu Gourmet's catalog was a smashing success.

• Results:  Prospecting mailing list rates increased by 500%;  Customer response rates increased by 900%

Epicurious.com:  Epicurious was trying out Google Base and decided to upload a bulk file of 20,000 recipes.  They didn't get a lot of response from the endeavor.  Instead of throwing in the towel, the company decided to go directly to the source:  Google.  After getting some feedback from Google about possible reasons for the low performance of their Base entries, Epicurious re-uploaded the recipes with more attributes assigned to each.

• Results:  6% increase in traffic almost instantly;  3 months later they were experiencing the highest traffic volume they'd ever received

Compete Consumer Generated Media:  Compete conducted a study of internet users and the effect that feedback from other customers had on their shopping habits.  In this case, the feedback was directed at the consumer and not the website in question.  But as the survey data shows, websites with forums for customers to leave feedback on fared far better than those that didn't.  There are a lot of stats in this case study, so I'll just highlight a few here now.

• Results:  60% said they preferred sites with user feedback; People ranked customer feedback twice as reliable as corporate information

Sometimes You Have to Think Outside The Box

Odyessy Golf:  Odyessy's goal was generate leads for its marketing campaign.  They considered traditional lead-generation tactics, but decided to go a radically different route.  The company created a blog with a "reality tv" twist that tracked the journey of three golfers on their way through the golf circuit.  They put blogging, online video, and photography to use on their blog and it turned out to be a huge hit.

• Results:  40% increase in lead-generation database; Unique website visitors doubled; 20% longer page-view times

The Motley Fool:  The Motley Fool was trying to come up with ways to revamp their 8 year old email mailing list.  The list had stopped performing and was in need of a dire overhaul.  After throwing several ideas around, the company decided to change the format of the email from double opt-in system to a single opt-in one.  And while that system provided several new challenges, and flew in the face of the established norm, The Motley Fool had great success with their new email list.

• Results:  Overall sales increased by 45%;  130% increase in email marketing list size

Opel/Benelux:  Opel's goal was the promotion of a new convertible.  They knew it'd all been done before and they wanted to try to come up with something that customers would remember the rest of their lives.  They devised an ingenious system that took names and phone numbers from an email list, inserted those names into an online video, and linked telemarketing dialers to the video.  The end result was amazing.  Customers watched a video in which their name appeared.  A character in the video said he was calling the customer.  This triggered the telemarketing dialer to call the customer with a recorded message from he video character.  It was definitely something customers remembered!

• Results:  15,000 initial participants exploded to over 400,000 due to a wildly popular viral element

The Moral of the Story

So what do all of these success stories have in common?  They all found out that changes were needed.  They all found out that their design and their systems weren't perfect.  And the found out that making changes could generate huge benefits.

No website is perfect.  No product is perfect.  And no service is perfect.  I found that out for myself today.  The one thing that all of these case studies have in common is the fact that they were willing to change.  Change is required in an environment that evolves as quickly as the internet.  If you get stuck in a routine and nothing changes, the competition will swallow you whole… because they are changing.

So whether you run some tests, solicit feedback, or take an approach that falls outside the box, start thinking about the changes YOU can make.  Maybe your success story will show up on the next case study roundup.