As the summer months move on, most of us tend to fall into a slower and more laid back approach when it comes to work. Sure we are still taking care of business but there is a relaxed feeling in the air. Team members are on vacation, the weather puts everyone in a good mood and for most businesses, summer is a much slower period.
Since you are all so relaxed and have more "quality time" to sit and read our blog, it seems like the perfect opportunity for a reminder on how important testing is when it comes to email marketing.
Testing is something you never want to fall out of practice with and if you don't have a process in place already, you should start now.
Here is the Top 10 things to test to make your email marketing campaign the best.
1. From (Sender) Name: The most effective From Name is what your subscribers recognize you by or expect to hear from. Not sure what that is? Well that is where testing comes into play. Try out different options and monitor those open rates.
2. Subject Line: Send a small part of your email list (10% or so) one subject line and another part (10%) a different subject line. Then, look at which subject line performs better and send the remaining 80% the more successful subject line. This is a sure way to increase the opens on your next campaign.
3. Pre-Header: Your pre-header should support or complement your subject line. Think of it as the more detailed answer to what your subject line is announcing. For example, your subject line tells your recipients you're having a sale (Limited Time Only - 50% Off Sale) then your pre-header would explain what items are on sale (Save On All Men's & Women's Shoes).
4. Headline: Your headline should clearly explain what your email is about and what's in it for the recipient. Think of how you read a newspaper article and what headlines grab you and explain what you are about to read.
5. How You Explain Your Offer: No matter how clearly you explain your offer, there will be those who take it a different way. Are you promoting a half off sale? 50% off? Buy one get one free? Two for one? The way you say it can affect the success. Ask around the office, especially if you have dedicated salespeople or customer support. Their input is invaluable.
6. Text link vs. Buttons: People like to click buttons over links. We are not saying you can't use text links but a nice mixture of both will usually do the trick. Buttons that say click here, or sign up here or social media buttons do get clicked on more based on our metrics.
7. Color of Your Button/Call to Action: Hard to believe the color of a button can determine the success of a newsletter. But it is true. Since you are testing other attributes already, you might as well see if people click more or less depending on color. The human eye wants what the human eye wants.
8. Placement of Call to Action: Where do you place your call to action? Near the start? At the end? Test where you put your Call to Action in your email and how many you include throughout. Use your click-through rate to help determine what worked and what didn't over previous campaigns.
9. Client testimonials: Test to see if customer testimonials help your emails perform better. Depending on your business, potential customers want to see good word of mouth from other customers. If you determine there is no gains by doing this, use the space for something that provides more value to the reader.
10. Images: Test how many images you have, where you put them and what images you use. Images are an area you should be changing anyways as you don't want your emails becoming stale looking to your readers. Don't forget to use alt-text as well since many people will scan your email without images turned on.
Bonus.
Template: The overall design of your template can always use a tweak or two in order to fully optimize it. This can be a time consuming task but if you have tested out the previous 10 items and are still unhappy, it may be time to look at the big picture and that means your template.
See that was not so bad and we bet you are still feeling relaxed. With the busy months coming up, use the next few weeks to try out new things and test your email marketing campaign. There is always room for improvement no matter how well open rates and click-through rates are (well unless you have 100%).
We hope you enjoyed the Top 10 things to test to make your email marketing campaign the best.
