What is the Taguchi Method?

The Taguchi method is an equation developed by Genichi Taguchi designed to improve the quality and efficiency of a line of manufacture, and in turn save on profit margins.

Taguchi?'s method roots itself in the "Loss function" which factors two things: one, the production of a product and two, the losses involved in the production of this product. Taguchi argues that engineers and manufacturers must meet a certain quality standard of the product they are mass-manufacturing, otherwise their profit margins will decrease. The Taguchi method allows the manufacturer to systematically test any manufacturing process and predict the loss of profits as product quality decreases.

To take a practical example. Suppose a light bulb is meant to operate at 100W and heat up by no more than 85 degrees Celsius. If the engineering is of poor quality, then you increase the chance of producing a product which lies outside of its original specifications. For example, maybe the occasional light bulb can only produce the light of a 60W bulb, meaning it ends up producing more heat. If a company continues to produce faulty products like these, the loss in quality results in a measurable loss in profits. The Taguchi method systematically calculates the relation between product quality and profit margin.

The method details that everything in the line of manufacture counts and that everything can be minutely optimized to squeeze a progressively higher profit margin ?from the costly recall of a product, to the shipping costs of bringing a product back to manufacture.

What does this mean for Webmasters and Internet Marketers?

Well, a crop of recent products have applied the Taguchi method of manufacture to online marketing, with the idea that every component of a website, for example the sales page, landing page, content, design and so on can be minutely optimized to yield a higher conversion rate. Using a technique known as accelerated split-testing, every variable of your page can be measured and tested to see which sales page - out of 1000s of combinations - gets the best results. Conversion increases are often substantial, ranging anywhere from 20% - 300%+, and many Taguchi products are completely guaranteed ensuring zero risk for the buyer.

If you could manually test 2000 landing pages, wouldn't at least one of them result in substantially increased sales? It's pretty much a mathematical certainty that testing on that level would produce a a sales page with a higher conversion rate. That's exactly what the Taguchi method does, it automates the prohibitiively tedious process of testing 1000s of potential sales pages, so you can quickly and easily find one that sells significantly more of your product.