Email Testing: 7 tips from your peers for email conversion optimization
We recently asked the MarketingSherpa audience for tips on running effective email tests. Here are a few of the most helpful responses to consider as you start to develop an email testing program.
Tip #1: Start with send time and subject line testing
“Testing and measuring open rate data for send times and subject lines is the best place to start. Once the open rates increase, you can work on the messaging to improve email engagement and conversions.” – Markelle Harden, Content Marketing Specialist, Classy Inbound
Tip #2: The language of your best customer
“Subject line tests are an incredible way to drill down into the language of your best customer and we use this to directly influence the rest of the offer.” – Al Simon
Tip #3: Don’t overlook the landing page
“Landing page tests are especially important and often overlooked. The more seamless the experience leading to the call to action, the higher the conversion rate. I have seen conversions increase substantially as the landing page was edited based on test results to more specifically match the offer.” – Susan F. Heywood, Marketer, educator, entrepreneur
Tip #4: The single largest performance boost you can give your marketing
“Marketing testing is the single largest performance boost you can give your marketing. For so little effort – and the same budget – you can improve your returns many fold.” – Everard Hunder, CMO, Monash IVF – Australia
Tip #5: The learnings that come from testing are worth the effort
“Testing is critical to improving our engagement rates. Advance planning is necessary to conduct a test, and is the hardest part of testing, but the learnings that come from testing are worth the advance effort, every time.” – Alyson Dodgen, Marketing Advisor, FedEx Services
Tip #6: You can learn a lot about your customers
“Regardless of the size of your business or the visibility of your brand, testing is crucial if you want to maximize your time, effort and investment in marketing. Don’t be afraid to test your subject lines at minimum. Most email providers enable you to A/B test (Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, etc.) even if you have a small list. You can learn a lot about your customers by testing, too. Who you thought your ideal customers were may not be the ones opening your emails.” – Betsy Kent, President, Be Visible
Tip #7: Focus on the product
“Spend more time creating the product you’re going to market, than creating marketing for your product.” – Marc Walters, Direct Response/Digital Marketing Consultant
Bound to bring positive results
And we’ll end with one final encouragement to inspire you to get started: “Test, test, and test … your outbound email marketing is bound to bring in positive results.” – Melvin Immanuel, Eighty20 Marketera
You can follow Daniel Burstein, Senior Director, Content & Marketing, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute, on Twitter @DanielBurstein.
You might also like …
MECLABS Quarterly Research Digest Vol. I, Issue 4 (See a review of 100+ successful subject lines that reveal what motivates people to open or delete an email on page 59)
Email Research: The 5 best email variables to test
Categories: Email Marketing A/B testing, conversion optimization, email testing, landing page testing, Marketing, survey
