What to test in your email campaigns

We all want better results on our email marketing efforts, but few of us are willing to do what it takes: Test.

I don’t know if it’s because we’re all convinced testing takes too long, whether we’re too excited to blast our sends out there, or if we’re simply too pushed for time; but one of the things most neglected by email marketers is thorough testing of their campaigns.

And then we wonder why our results don’t improve or our campaigns fail…

Whether it’s your content, subject line, your send time or your newsletter layout you’re not sure about, testing your emails is the only way to get a concrete answer on what works best for your subscribers.   Perhaps you think you have the perfect newsletter - it must be your recipient’s fault…or email marketing’s fault…  Time to test!

Not sure what to test?

MarketingSherpa recently published this chart on a survey they did to find out what it is that email marketers test, or plan to test, in their campaigns.  Interesting – and it gives you a good idea of possible things to test for in your own campaign.

So in what way can you test your newsletter?

 A/B split testing
With A/B split testing you can test variations of your newsletter or subject line on a portion of your list.  Once you know which version yielded the best results, you can then send off the winning version to the rest of your mailing list, ensuring that you only send out those newsletters that will have the most impact.  (You can test up to five different newsletter variations.) 

Inbox preview
Every email client shows up your email differently.  That means that those subscribers who read your email in Gmail, will see it differently to those who read it in Outlook…or Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc.  With Inbox Preview you can easily preview what your email look like in a range of different email clients, so you can make sure that each of your recipients will be able to view your email hassle-free.

Test sends
You’d be surprised by the number of email marketers who send off their newsletter without having conducted a test send!  ALWAYS send a test version to yourself – I know I, more often than not, pick up on a broken link or even an incorrect heading in my test sends.  Our support team has, on more than one occasion, had frantic clients on the line desperately looking for an “Undo” button because they’ve sent out an email and realized a crucial mistake too late.  Well, there is no “undo” button – so send a test!

Of course, subscribers evolve continuously – mailing lists and subscriber interests are forever changing.  The only way around this is to test regularly.  You’ve invested so much time and resources into your email marketing venture, a few minutes to test could improve your results dramatically, making it all the more worthwhile.