Worldwide, marketers ideate and speculate on the perfect execution of email marketing. What gets the most opens, the most clicks and of course, the most conversions? What time of day and day of week is best to send an email marketing campaign? Which offer will work best? What graphic is most eye-catching?
Well, gather ‘round for the secret of creating that elusive perfect promotional email… The answer is testing.
Truly, the answer to all these questions – as is true with just about all email marketing questions – is “it depends.” Depending on your campaign’s audience, your product, your geography, your industry and dozens more factors, the answer to each of those questions can change dramatically. B-to-C companies may find that a Saturday morning email works best, while B-to-B sales will probably want to send marketing messages during business hours. Time of send should depend on the recipients’ time zone(s), not yours. As email marketers, we are in the fortunate position to be able to measure every action and reaction in every campaign we execute to see what customers react best to. It’s just one of the beauties of interactive, namely email marketing. We’re not only looking for things that increase open and click through rates, but also we want to learn what causes suppression and complaint rates to increase, so we can correct those features in the future. For example, if you send too often, your list will tell you with a higher opt-out rate.
So we test. With real-time reporting and full measurability, email marketing is a hot bed for testing opportunities. The best practice would be A/B testing, meaning ten percent of your email marketing list gets version A and ten percent gets B. After a set period of time, whichever version is performing or pacing better gets sent to the remaining eighty percent of the list. For smaller list sizes, you can simply split your list 50/50 and take what you learn into future campaigns.
So what can you test in your email marketing campaigns? Everything. And you should. Test it all, because nothing can be assumed. If you want to create that perfect promotional email, you should have the right message in front of the right people at the right time.
So, test away:
- email subject line
- headline within the body of the email
- graphic colors, shapes and sizes
- email copy length
- position and number of links
- new email features, like a real-time Twitter feed or client spotlight
- how much personalization is the “right” amount
- marketing offer values and frequency
- email layout
- marketing- or advertising-to-editorial content balance
You may be surprised at your findings. But be sure to make testing manageable for yourself. If you don’t have a whole team assigned to research, you may stick to testing just one or two variables in each campaign.
Let’s look at an example. One emfluence client was headed into holiday season with a special offer for hot sauce. Rather than send the entire email list the same discount, they sent half the list a coupon for 15% off and half the list a coupon for 25% off. Both offers had the same conversion rates! So they continued to offer the 15% discount and saved themselves the 10% difference on the next email marketing campaign.
For best test results, be sure you follow a few tips:
- Test one variable at a time. If you’re testing the offer, make sure you compare December numbers to December numbers and not to March numbers. Different offers will work during different seasons. When you test what time of day works best, be sure your offers, graphics and list participants are all held constant.
- Use a statistically relevant sample size. Ten thousand is generally a minimum number for testing. If you have a smaller email marketing list to begin with, you can still test, but be careful not to make concrete assumptions from your findings.
- ABT: Always Be Testing. You should learn something from every email campaign you execute. And in a rapidly changing marketing climate, your results can be irrelevant in as little as a year, so keep testing and re-testing every aspect of your campaigns. When your head honcho says you don’t have the time or money to risk testing, remind her/him that testing is the only way to not have to take risks in the future. Try the A/B Testing method to assure Ms. CEO that 90% of your list will get the better of two offers.
Ok, so will you ever reach that one perfect email message? Debatable. But you can get closer with each campaign as long as you’re testing. Prior to each new run, look back and leverage what you’ve learned from previous testing. By continuously tweaking your campaigns, you’ll be maximizing your email marketing effectiveness over time.
