When companies begin email marketing automation for the first time, they often ask what works. Their goal is to duplicate exactly the same “best practices” and follow any rules so they can duplicate the success of others. However, the successful business they might follow is different. Thus, even a company in the same industry has a different brand and business model. Copying their success will lead to failure… unless you test, measure and adjust.
With an integrated email marketing automation provider and powerful web based contact management software, you can test just about anything you put out there. While almost everyone knows the importance of a good subject line and will monitor what causes recipients to open the email, to really engage your sales leads and customers the email marketing analytics have to mined more deeply.
When companies begin email marketing automation for the first time, they often ask what works.
What should be tested
Marketing Sherpa created a chart to show the many email elements that can be tested. You can probably add to this list. Moreover, here are a few of the important ones that have been identified for email marketing automation by Dave Green’s team:
Subject line
It is really easy to test this element and it can be very counter-intuitive what gets an email opened. Only testing reveals what works. 72% of marketers will test subject line length, brand statements and phrasing.
Message:
The greeting, body and closing can be tweaked and get a different result. That’s why 62% of the professionals test those elements.
Layout and images:
Visual components of the email greatly affect its perceived value to the reader. While, it takes a bit more time to make those kinds of changes, but if you hit upon a visual brand that works for you, it can make sense to spend the time.
Calls to Action (CTA):
Knowing which “buy button” gets response is critical to making your email campaign work. As part of the visual components, layout, images and CTA’s are tested about 50% of the time.
Visual components of the email greatly affect its perceived value to the reader. While, it takes a bit more time to make those kinds of changes, but if you hit upon a visual brand that works for you, it can make sense to spend the time.
How to monitor your email marketing automation test results
You’ve heard the old adage that “What gets measured gets done”. Like everything else worth doing, in email marketing automation, the old saying applies. Of course, most people charged with marketing for their business have little time for babysitting each email campaign. That is why a good email marketing campaign should be integrated within a powerful online CRM. Thus, you should be able to set up custom dashboard analytics to track everything that matters to your business.
With this level of technology, you can also track things like sales leads, calls, proposals, follow up meetings and more. Once the metrics are set up in the online CRM, it becomes very easy to keep your finger on the pulse of customer activity and adjust your efforts according to what you see in those numbers.
Most people charged with marketing for their business have little time for babysitting each email campaign. That is why a good email marketing campaign should be integrated within a powerful online CRM.
Where to start testing
1. Test subject lines and headlines first.
They are some of the most critical aspects of your email marketing campaign and the easiest to adjust.
2. Only one component at a time.
When you start testing, it is easy to go crazy by questioning everything in the email. If you test more than one thing at a time, you won’t be able to know what worked.
3. Start with a consistent day and time.
For example, if you are testing the subject lines, the response you get may be very different at 8am on a Monday morning than you would get at 3pm on a Wednesday. Thus, to make sure your tests yield good results, keep those two aspects the same and eliminate those variants.
4. Set up a record log.
Start a record log in your online CRM to keep track of results at the specific customer level.
5. Test something each day.
When you think about all the variants in an email, it can feel endless and daunting. Hence, just make it part of your daily routine and it won’t take much time at all.
6. Recognize that a little bump in response can mean big revenues to your company.
This guide from Market to explains email test statistics on a deeper level. Keep in mind the article is refers to landing page testing, but the same principals apply to elements of your email. Just use the term “open rate” instead of “conversion rate” to see what can be accomplished with your testing.
7. Respond to what you learn.
Without a doubt, all the time you spend on testing has absolutely no value if you don’t adjust your email marketing campaign to what you have learned.
The response you get may be very different at 8am on a Monday morning than you would get at 3pm on a Wednesday…
Changes in the marketplace happen at a rapid pace these days. Keeping up with the changing preferences of your sales leads and customers is impossible for most business unless they implement email marketing automation technology to do it for them.