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It's important for you to always try to improve your email marketing strategy. The trends continue to change each year, and you need to adapt. If you're still sending out the same boring newsletter or promotional offer you used 5 years ago, it's time for you to make some improvements and adjustments. But where do you start? You may want to try testing a couple of different templates or designs to see which one is the most effective. A/B testing is not strictly for people who want to update their old email strategies. It's great for business owners and marketers who are actively trying to keep up with the new trends as well. Making minor changes to your subject lines, color scheme, CTA buttons, and design could drastically improve your conversions. If you've never attempted to A/B test your marketing emails, I'll show you how to get started. Test only one hypothesis at a timeFirst, decide what you want to test. Once you decide what you're testing, come up with a hypothesis. Next, design the test to check that hypothesis. For example, you may want to start by testing your call to action. Let's look at how Optimizelytested their CTA button. These two messages are identical. The only thing that changed was the wording of their call to action. They didn't change the color, design, heading, or text of the message. Optimizely simply tested Watch Webinar against View Presentations & Slides. The results were drastically different. Subscribers clicked on the variation nearly 50% more than the control group. You may want to run further tests on other components of the message. So, now that Optimizely knows which variation produces the most clicks, they can proceed with testing different subject lines that can increase open rates. Where do you start? Before you can come up with a valid hypothesis, you may need to do some research. Decide which component of your subject line you want to test. Here's some great data from Marketing Charts. Based on this information, you could A/B test the number of characters in your subject line. You already know that subjects with 1-20 characters produce the most opens. Take that one step further. Your hypothesis could be that 11-20 characters will produce more opens than 1-10 characters. There's your variation. Let's say the first thing you tested was a CTA button, like in the Optimizely example. Now, you can move on to the subject line. If you tested the CTA and subject line at the same time, you wouldn't know which one was the biggest factor in your results. You can't effectively test a hypothesis with multiple variables. Testing one thing at a time will ultimately help you create the most efficient message. How to set up your A/B email testsAll right, now that you know what to test, it's time to create your email. How do you do this? It depends on your email marketing service. Not all platforms give you this option. If your current provider doesn't have this feature, you may want to consider finding an alternative service. I'll show you the step-by-step process of running an A/B test throughHubSpot's platform. Step #1: Select Email from the Content tab of your Marketing Dashboard Your marketing dashboard is pretty much the home page for the HubSpot account. Just navigate to the content tab and select Email to proceed. Step #2: Click Create email Look for the Create email button in the top right corner of your page. Step #3: Create your A/B test Once you name your email campaign and select a template, next you'll see the editing tab. Click on the blue Create A/B Test button on the left side of your screen. Step #4: Name the variation By default, this popup will have the name of your campaign with (Variation) after it. But you can name it something more specific based on what you're testing. For example, you can name it September News CTA Button Placement instead. Step #5: Change the variation based on your hypothesis Now you can edit the two messages. Remember, the content should be identical. Change only the one thing you're testing. Step #6: Choose the distribution size of the test groups 50/50 is the best distribution. But if you want to modify it, drag the slide bar to change the distribution ratio. Step #7: Analyze the results After you send out the test, HubSpot's software automatically generates a report. Based on the test we ran, Version B had a higher open rate. So, that must be the clear winner, right? Not so fast. It was higher by less than 1% compared to the control group. The difference isn't significant enough to declare a definitive winner. It's an inconclusive test. That's OK. These things happen. If the results are within 1% like in the example above, it's pretty clear they are inconclusive. But what about 5%? 10%? Or 15%? Where do you draw the line? You need to determine your natural variance. Run an A/A test email to determine this. Here's an exampleof an A/A test on a website: The pages are the same. But the one on the right saw 15% higher conversions. So that's the natural variance. Use this same concept for your email campaign. Send identical emails to see what the open rates and click-through rates are. Compare that number against your A/B test results to see if your variance results were meaningful. Test the send time of each messageSometimes you need to think outside the box when you're running these tests. Your subject line and CTA button may not be the problem. What time of day are you sending your messages? What day of the week do your emails go out? You may think Monday morning is a great time because people are starting the week ready to go through emails. But doing further researchsuggests otherwise. It appears more people open emails in the middle of the week. You can run a split test between Wednesday and Thursday or Tuesday and Thursday to see which days are the best. Take your test one step further. Hypothesize what time you think your subscribers will open and click in your message. Studies showpeople are more likely to open an email in the afternoon. Between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM is the time when you'll probably see the most activity. Take this information into consideration when you're running an A/B test. Your opening lines are essentialEarlier we identified the importance of testing your subject line. Let's take that a step further. Focus on the first few lines of your message. Most email platforms give the recipient a preview of the message underneath the subject. Here's what it looks like on a user's phone in their Gmail account: Play around with the opening lines of your message. It's a great opportunity to run an A/B test. Look at some of the examples above. Banana Republicdoesn't mention the offer in the first few lines. Why? Because it's written in the subject line. It would be redundant if they included that information again in the first sentence. But if you keep reading, there's probably room for improvement. The next part of the message tells you that you can see all the images on their mobile site. That may not be the most efficient use of their preview space. There's one way we can find out for sure. Run an A/B test. Changing your opening lines can help improve open ratesby up to 45%. Manually running an A/B testAs I mentioned earlier, not every email marketing platform has an A/B test option built into their service. Other sites besides HubSpot that have an A/B test feature include: But if you're happy with your current provider and don't want to switch for just one additional feature, you can still manually run an A/B test. Split your list into two groups, and run the test that way. It's possible you already have your contacts segmentedby other metrics. This can help increase open rates and conversions. But it's also an effective method for analyzing your hypothesis. You'll have to create two separate campaigns and compare the results, which is completely fine. You just won't see the comparison side by side on the same page as we saw in the earlier example. If you're doing this manually, always run your tests simultaneously. Running tests on separate occasions could impact the results based on time, which plays a major factor in the analysis. Test a large sample size. This will help ensure your results are more accurate before you jump to definitive conclusions. Running a manual testdoes notmean you should test more than one variable at the same time. Stick to what we outlined earlier, picking a single variation for each test. Experiment with the design of your email campaignsOnce you have your subject line, opening sentences, and calls to action mastered, it's time to think about your existing template. You can keep all your content the same, but change the layout. Here are some examples of different templates from MailChimp: What do all of these templates have in common? The word count. None of these templates give you space to write long paragraphs because it's not effective. Keep your message short. Research from Boomerangsuggests that your email should be between 50 and 125 words. The messages in their test sample got at least a 50% response rate. While you're experimenting with template designs, you can also try different images. Try one large background image with text written over it. Another option is to include a picture within the content. Your A/B template test can help determine which method is more effective. Swapping out one image for another is something else you can test. For example, if you're using a picture of a person, test the difference between a male and female. ConclusionA/B testingworks. If you used these tests to successfully optimize conversions on your website, the same concept could be applied to your email marketing strategy. Before you get started, come up with a valid hypothesis. Don't start changing things without a plan. Test onlyone variationat a time. After you've come up with conclusive results for your first test, you can move on to something else. Try testing your:
The email marketing service you're currently using may have an option for you to run and analyze the results from an A/B test. If not, it's no problem. You can manually run an A/B test by creating two separate groups and two different campaigns. This is still an effective method. A/B tests will help increase opens, clicks, and conversions. Ultimately, this can generate more revenue for your business. How will you modify the call to action in the first variation of your A/B test? It's always great news for a business when their subscriber list starts to grow. The growing list of subscribers implies that people are interested in your company and you have the opportunity to increase your revenue. But that's not always the case. People ask me all the time why their bottom line hasn't improved as their subscriber rates increase. It's because they don't have active subscribers. How do you stay connectedand make sure your customers are actively engaged with your content? Take a step back, and assess your current opt-in process. It may have some flaws. Sure, you may see your number of subscribers grow. But that's useless if these people aren't actually interested in your company. Switching to a double opt-in strategy may be the solution. I'll show you how to use a double opt-in landing page to increase conversion rates. What's wrong with the single opt-in landing process?If you don't know the difference between these two types of landing pages, it's safe to assume you're currently using a single opt-in form. A single opt-in is simple for both you and the subscriber. They enter their email address and automatically get added to your subscription list. Here's an example from Lowe's Home Improvement: All they ask for is your email address and zip code so that they can send you relevant promotions based on your location. Once you click Save Today, you'll instantly join the email list. It's easy for users, and it's a great tactic to increase the number of newsletter subscribers fast. However, there are some problems with this strategy as well. You may end up with some invalid or useless email addresses on your list. Here are a few scenarios.
People make mistakes when they are typing. So it's not uncommon for someone who wants to join your subscriber list to incorrectly enter their email address. This person may eventually realize the error if they don't receive any messages from you. Hopefully, they will go back and submit the correct information. However, their invalid address will remain on your list. Sometimes a customer could purposely enter a fake email address if it means they can receive a discount on their order. To prevent this, you should always email the sign-up promotion instead of automatically applying it to their checkout page. Here's an example from Topshop: It's also possible that someone entered their email address by accident. Sometimes people may get confused and think they needed to submit an email address to continue, especially if you have a popup form. Here's another possibility. Let's say you're an ecommerce store that requires an email address during the checkout process. The customer may want to get shipping details and an order receipt sent to their email address, but that doesn't mean they want to join your newsletter. Here's an example: If that box is checked off by default, you may get subscribers who don't actually want to be on your list. Depending on your email marketing service provider, you may be paying a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee based on the number of subscribers on your list. You'll happily pay if all those subscribers are active and engaged. But if you have fake emails, invalid names, and people who signed up by mistake, you're wasting money. Plus, all of your analytics will be thrown off. You can't effectively analyze the success of your campaign without accurate data. Double opt-in landing pages are more efficientThe double opt-in strategy can eliminate some of the problems we just discussed. Your company may be experiencing some of those issues if you're currently using a single opt-in strategy. So, what's a double opt-in? It's a form that appears after the visitor clicks your call-to-actionbutton. Here's what Khol'sdouble opt-in page looks like: Basically, it's a two-step verification process. Sending a confirmation email is another great way to accomplish this. Look at the impact double opt-ins can have on your unique open rates: Here are some more top benefits of a double opt-in email:
Let's continue to break down the double opt-in email. The subscriber has to verify their email addressbefore they get added to your list. Earlier I mentioned that incorrect or fake email addresses could be plaguing your single opt-in strategy. This won't be an issue if you send the prospective subscriber a confirmation message. Don't get me wrong. This isn't a perfect system either. Since it requires more steps, some users may not complete the process. Some people may think the double opt-in emails could be too much. This is especially true if you're sending a confirmation message and thena welcome message after their address is verified. So, here's what you can do. Combine your verification email with the welcome message. That's how nearly 80% of email marketers are handling their double opt-in emails. Otherwise, it can be an overload of messages, which the subscriber could mark as spam.
That's potential four messages your subscriber could receive within the first few days of signing up. It's too many. Yes, once they are added to your list, it makes sense to send out a drip campaign. Just don't do it all at once. Space the messages out over a longer period of time so you aren't perceived as a spammer. How to create a double opt-in emailNow you understand the basic differences between a single and double opt-in landing page. It's time to learn the step-by-step process for your double opt-in email. Depending on your email service provider, the wording on each page may be slightly different. In this example, I'll show you how to set up a double opt-in email on HubSpot's platform. Step #1: Select Double Opt-In under the Email section of Content Settings: Navigate to the Content Settings tab. Next, click on Email. You'll see the Double Opt-in option about halfway down this menu. Step #2: Customize the double opt-in message: From the double opt-in page, click Edit email. This will be the message your prospective subscribers receive after they complete the first step of your opt-in process. The message should be delivered immediately so the user can proceed and officially join your list. Step #3: Create a confirmation page and follow-up email: Once the subscriber verifies their email address and completes the second opt-in phase, they will receive a confirmation. There are two types of confirmations:
The landing page will open in their Internet browsing window after the subscriber confirms the first message. At the same time, they can receive a follow-up message that also confirms their subscription. If you don't want your new subscribers to receive too many messages in a short period of time, simply uncheck the Include follow-up email box. I would recommend using this opportunity to send a welcome messageto your newest subscribers. It's much more practical than another confirmation email. Step #4: Review the Enable options: The enable section allows you to choose when to put the double opt-in option on your website. By default, this option is marked as disabled. I recommend enabling this option for all your pages. This will increase the chances of getting higher conversions. But it's not required. You can enable your double opt-in on specific pages only. If you want to include the opt-in on most of your pages, but not all of them, check off the Disabled for some pages only box. It's pretty straightforward. Step #5: Manually send an opt-in (optional): Here's a scenario. Let's say you forgot to change the default enable options in our previous step. If a user subscribes, they won't receive your opt-in email verification when the page is disabled. In this case, you can manually send a new subscriber an opt-in message. Just navigate to your contacts page and click on the user. Click Actions under their name, and select Send opt-in email. That will ensure that your new subscriber receives the message you customized in the second step. HubSpot's platform is really easy to navigate and understand. So if your current email marketing software doesn't have this feature, you may want to consider signing up for an alternative. Additional tips for getting sky-high conversionsBefore you can send out your double opt-in email, you'll need the user to click on your CTA button in the first place. Otherwise, they will never have the opportunity to receive a confirmation message. One of the first things you should consider is the placement of your opt-in button. The majority of companies are putting their opt-in CTAs in the footers of their websites. Just make sure it's big, bold, and clear so that the visitors can't miss it. Your page should also have:
All of these factors can help increase your chances of getting customers to proceed with your double opt-in. Here's something else you want to consider. Timing. It may sound silly, but it's one of the most important components if you're sending a double opt-in email. Don't leave your subscribers in the dark. Especially if you're putting them through a two-step verification process. Making the customer wait could lower their interest and engagement. Maybe they wanted to join your list to receive a promotion or a discount. If the customer doesn't get that offer right away, they may be more inclined to make their purchase elsewhere. ConclusionIf your email list is growing without benefiting your business, you may want to consider changing your opt-in strategy. While single opt-in forms are simple and a fast way to grow your email list, they are not always effective. You'll get some incorrect email addresses that will:
Instead, you can create a double opt-in landing page to increase engagement. Consider the componentsof an opt-in email: Make sure your message is active. This will get the subscriber to complete the two-step process and join your list. A double opt-in also ensures that your subscribers are legitimately interested in your brand, products, and content. Ultimately, this will increase your conversions. If your current email marketing software doesn't allow you to write double opt-in messages, you may want to consider changing platforms. Then you can follow the step-by-step guide outlined above for creating the perfect double opt-in email. Make sure your initial opt-in button on your website has a clear CTA. Otherwise, visitors won't be able to start the two-step process. How will your offer entice website visitors to confirm their email addresses before officially joining the subscriber list? Has your email list come to a standstill? Unfortunately for some businesses, the marketing campaigns designed to grow their email listsdon't always work. The methods grow stale, and businesses have trouble adding new subscribers. If this is happening to you, don't get discouraged. I'll show you how to add subscribers and increase engagement with customer surveys. Focusing on customer surveys will be a great decision for your brand. You'll find out valuable information about their levels of satisfaction and buying habits. Surveys can help alter your marketing strategy, products, or services based on the results. Asking the customer for their opinion is a great way to show how much you careabout them. Nearly 70% of customers said they left a brand because they did not feel the brand cared. Don't let this happen to you. Keeping your customers happy is a great way to add subscribers to your email list. You can even send customers a survey through an interactive email. In this post, I'll show you how to use surveys to explode your email list. First, come up with ideas for a surveyWhat's your survey going to be about? Before you can build a survey, figure this part out. You can't have a one size fits all questionnaire. You'll need to come up with a few different ideas here. Here are a few examples to guide you in the right direction. You can create a survey about:
Just make sure your questions focus on the customer experience. If your customers are experiencing an issue with your brand, products, or process, a survey can help you identify these problems. You can't resolve an issue unless you identify it first. Build your surveyNow that you've decided what your survey should be about, it's time to construct it. If you've never created a survey before, don't worry. It's super easy, and I'll show you how to do it. Here's a step-by-step guide to building a professional customer survey. Step #1: Select a platform like SurveyMonkey SurveyMonkey is a top option, but it's not your only choice. I like it because it's easy to use and it's free. You can also check out other sites: All of these will get the job done. But for simplicity and consistency, I'll continue explaining how to create your survey on the SurveyMonkey platform. Step #2: Sign up for an account SurveyMonkey makes it easy for you to create a profile. You can create a unique username or just sign in through your Facebook or Google accounts. I think it's easier to just click the Google button. But it's a quick process no matter which option you choose. You can't proceed until you create your account. But again, it's free, so you don't have to give any credit card or billing information. Step #3: Choose your template You've got some different options here. You can build your survey from scratch or choose one of the predesigned templates. I'd go with one already designed. It's much easier to just plug in your questions into their designs. But if you want to be adventurous, feel free to start one from scratch. Step #4: Select Customer Feedback from the All Templates menu: For our purposes, the templates in the customer feedback section are the most relevant. Remember, we are designing our surveys to:
This is the best spot to get started. Step #5: Navigate to the Question Bank to add questions After you select a template, you'll advance to the Design Survey tab. From here, you can customize your questions from the question bank in the left column. You can use their existing questions, modify them, or write your own. For example, take a look at the question in the above example. I could change the words our company to Quick Sprout to make it less generic. Step #6: Collect responses from your customers Now that you've customized the survey, it's time to distribute it to your customers. Click the Collect Responses tab to proceed. Now, the logical distribution method would be email, right? Well, yes and no. Here's what I mean. Yes, you want to send this email to your existing subscriber list. That's a no brainer. However, this won't necessarily help you build your email list. All these customers are already subscribed. Their responses are still valid, and you definitely want to hear them. You'll get more opens, clicks, and engagements by sending this out. But remember, you're trying to blow the top off your email list. To do this, you'll have to distribute the survey on all of your platforms:
I'll explain how you can use different resources to grow your email list. Share your survey on social media pagesYou may have fans and followers on social media who haven't subscribed to your email list yet. You can target these followers by distributing the survey through social platforms. It's a nice change of pace from your promotional messages. People will unfollow your page if you post only promotional content. A survey is a great way to mix it up. Your customers may have been waiting for a long time to tell you how they feel about your company. This survey is an opportunity for them to voice their opinions. Once they complete the survey, say thank you. Now's the perfect opportunity to get them to sign up for your email list. Here's how you do it. Before they get started,offer an incentive to your followers to complete the survey. They will be more inclined to share their opinions if they get something in return. Here's the twist. To receive their free gift or discount, they need to join your email list. Look at the wayBlue Apronaccomplishes this: Your social media followers will be happy to join your email list if they are getting something in return. Make sure the deal is worth it. Giving them 5% off may not be enticing enough. I'm not saying you need to give your products away, but the offer needs to be appealing. Converting your followers into customers by sharing your survey on social media can do wonders for your business. Take a look at the process. Consumer:
Now, you're growing your email listandgenerating revenue. All because of your survey. Social media is a great distribution method for your survey because customers are more likely to buy from brands they follow. Targeting people for your email list who are more inclined to purchase from your company is an excellent strategy. Leverage your survey results to boost your brand's reputationLet's take this a step further. You can use the results from your survey to grow your email list as well. There are two main ways to accomplish this:
Let's play out a hypothetical example here. You've obtained some new information from your latest survey results. Customers don't think you're running enough promotions. They want more discounts than you currently offer. Adjust your business model accordingly. Make a point to give your customers a sale or promotional discount at least a few times per month. How do they receive this discount? By subscribing to your email list. Start promoting more content that looks like this: Your survey results may be telling you that your current sign-up strategy is inefficient. What's the current incentive that your subscribers receive for signing up? If you're advertising that they will be the first people to get notified whenever you write a new blog post, it may not be exciting enough to them. Switch it up. Give the customers what they want, based on how they responded to your survey. You can also use social proofto leverage your survey results. This is another great way to grow your email list. Here's how social proof influences decisions: It's power in numbers. Use this psychological tacticto grow your email list. In addition to surveys, you can ask your customers to write reviewsfor your company. According to studies,82% of customersconduct research online before they make a purchasing decision. What information are they going to find about your company? If you can encourage customers to review your company online, it will generate social proof. Ask your customers to write reviews on platforms such as:
Obviously, you'll want to see positive reviews here. But don't be surprised if you find some unfavorable comments as well. The more people you can get to write reviews, the greater the power of social proof will be. Here's an example ofYelpreviews of some coffee shops in my Seattle neighborhood: These places have 930, 755, and 1469 reviews, respectively. When a customer is researching your brand online, seeing lots of reviews can influence their decision. Reviews can also help grow your email list if they say something like, I subscribed for weekly emails, and they always send me great discounts. Highlight surveys, and review results on your website. Here's a great example from Legal Zone: They proudly display this information on the homepage of their website. How did they find out this information? By conducting customer surveys. Sharing the survey results on their website will create social proof for the prospective customers conducting online research. This information can help influence more people to subscribe to receive emails. ConclusionYou should always be trying to grow your email list. But sometimes the tactics that worked for you in the past just aren't cutting it anymore. It's time to start thinking outside the box to add subscribers. Customer surveys can make a huge difference in your subscriber rate. Your surveys should focus on the customer experience. It's hard to make changes to the company if you haven't identified any problems. The survey results will help you see what areas of your business need improvement. Build a survey. Use a platform like SurveyMonkey, and follow the step-by-step guide above. Distribute your survey on as many channels as possible, including your social mediapages. It won't cost you billions of dollars to do this. Social media is a great place to share your survey because your followers are more likely to buy from your brand. It's only logical that you should target them to join your email list. Offer a reward, prize, or discount to consumers for completing your survey. That's how you can add more subscribers. To claim their reward, the customer needs to join your email list. Your survey results can also grow your list. Use the knowledge gained from the results to make the changes the customers asked for. Offer these changes through your email list. Leverage your survey results to add subscribers, capitalizing on the concept of social proof. Display the favorable results of the survey on your website. When people see that other customers are happy with your brand, they will be encouraged to submit their email addresses to receive more content and promotional information. What platform will you use to create a survey that will help you grow your email list? It's important for you to always try to improve your email marketing strategy. The trends continue to change each year, and you need to adapt. If you're still sending out the same boring newsletter or promotional offer you used 5 years ago, it's time for you to make some improvements and adjustments. But where do you start? You may want to try testing a couple of different templates or designs to see which one is the most effective. A/B testing is not strictly for people who want to update their old email strategies. It's great for business owners and marketers who are actively trying to keep up with the new trends as well. Making minor changes to your subject lines, color scheme, CTA buttons, and design could drastically improve your conversions. If you've never attempted to A/B test your marketing emails, I'll show you how to get started. Test only one hypothesis at a timeFirst, decide what you want to test. Once you decide what you're testing, come up with a hypothesis. Next, design the test to check that hypothesis. For example, you may want to start by testing your call to action. Let's look at how Optimizelytested their CTA button. These two messages are identical. The only thing that changed was the wording of their call to action. They didn't change the color, design, heading, or text of the message. Optimizely simply tested Watch Webinar against View Presentations & Slides. The results were drastically different. Subscribers clicked on the variation nearly 50% more than the control group. You may want to run further tests on other components of the message. So, now that Optimizely knows which variation produces the most clicks, they can proceed with testing different subject lines that can increase open rates. Where do you start? Before you can come up with a valid hypothesis, you may need to do some research. Decide which component of your subject line you want to test. Here's some great data from Marketing Charts. Based on this information, you could A/B test the number of characters in your subject line. You already know that subjects with 1-20 characters produce the most opens. Take that one step further. Your hypothesis could be that 11-20 characters will produce more opens than 1-10 characters. There's your variation. Let's say the first thing you tested was a CTA button, like in the Optimizely example. Now, you can move on to the subject line. If you tested the CTA and subject line at the same time, you wouldn't know which one was the biggest factor in your results. You can't effectively test a hypothesis with multiple variables. Testing one thing at a time will ultimately help you create the most efficient message. How to set up your A/B email testsAll right, now that you know what to test, it's time to create your email. How do you do this? It depends on your email marketing service. Not all platforms give you this option. If your current provider doesn't have this feature, you may want to consider finding an alternative service. I'll show you the step-by-step process of running an A/B test throughHubSpot's platform. Step #1: Select Email from the Content tab of your Marketing Dashboard Your marketing dashboard is pretty much the home page for the HubSpot account. Just navigate to the content tab and select Email to proceed. Step #2: Click Create email Look for the Create email button in the top right corner of your page. Step #3: Create your A/B test Once you name your email campaign and select a template, next you'll see the editing tab. Click on the blue Create A/B Test button on the left side of your screen. Step #4: Name the variation By default, this popup will have the name of your campaign with (Variation) after it. But you can name it something more specific based on what you're testing. For example, you can name it September News CTA Button Placement instead. Step #5: Change the variation based on your hypothesis Now you can edit the two messages. Remember, the content should be identical. Change only the one thing you're testing. Step #6: Choose the distribution size of the test groups 50/50 is the best distribution. But if you want to modify it, drag the slide bar to change the distribution ratio. Step #7: Analyze the results After you send out the test, HubSpot's software automatically generates a report. Based on the test we ran, Version B had a higher open rate. So, that must be the clear winner, right? Not so fast. It was higher by less than 1% compared to the control group. The difference isn't significant enough to declare a definitive winner. It's an inconclusive test. That's OK. These things happen. If the results are within 1% like in the example above, it's pretty clear they are inconclusive. But what about 5%? 10%? Or 15%? Where do you draw the line? You need to determine your natural variance. Run an A/A test email to determine this. Here's an exampleof an A/A test on a website: The pages are the same. But the one on the right saw 15% higher conversions. So that's the natural variance. Use this same concept for your email campaign. Send identical emails to see what the open rates and click-through rates are. Compare that number against your A/B test results to see if your variance results were meaningful. Test the send time of each messageSometimes you need to think outside the box when you're running these tests. Your subject line and CTA button may not be the problem. What time of day are you sending your messages? What day of the week do your emails go out? You may think Monday morning is a great time because people are starting the week ready to go through emails. But doing further researchsuggests otherwise. It appears more people open emails in the middle of the week. You can run a split test between Wednesday and Thursday or Tuesday and Thursday to see which days are the best. Take your test one step further. Hypothesize what time you think your subscribers will open and click in your message. Studies showpeople are more likely to open an email in the afternoon. Between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM is the time when you'll probably see the most activity. Take this information into consideration when you're running an A/B test. Your opening lines are essentialEarlier we identified the importance of testing your subject line. Let's take that a step further. Focus on the first few lines of your message. Most email platforms give the recipient a preview of the message underneath the subject. Here's what it looks like on a user's phone in their Gmail account: Play around with the opening lines of your message. It's a great opportunity to run an A/B test. Look at some of the examples above. Banana Republicdoesn't mention the offer in the first few lines. Why? Because it's written in the subject line. It would be redundant if they included that information again in the first sentence. But if you keep reading, there's probably room for improvement. The next part of the message tells you that you can see all the images on their mobile site. That may not be the most efficient use of their preview space. There's one way we can find out for sure. Run an A/B test. Changing your opening lines can help improve open ratesby up to 45%. Manually running an A/B testAs I mentioned earlier, not every email marketing platform has an A/B test option built into their service. Other sites besides HubSpot that have an A/B test feature include: But if you're happy with your current provider and don't want to switch for just one additional feature, you can still manually run an A/B test. Split your list into two groups, and run the test that way. It's possible you already have your contacts segmentedby other metrics. This can help increase open rates and conversions. But it's also an effective method for analyzing your hypothesis. You'll have to create two separate campaigns and compare the results, which is completely fine. You just won't see the comparison side by side on the same page as we saw in the earlier example. If you're doing this manually, always run your tests simultaneously. Running tests on separate occasions could impact the results based on time, which plays a major factor in the analysis. Test a large sample size. This will help ensure your results are more accurate before you jump to definitive conclusions. Running a manual testdoes notmean you should test more than one variable at the same time. Stick to what we outlined earlier, picking a single variation for each test. Experiment with the design of your email campaignsOnce you have your subject line, opening sentences, and calls to action mastered, it's time to think about your existing template. You can keep all your content the same, but change the layout. Here are some examples of different templates from MailChimp: What do all of these templates have in common? The word count. None of these templates give you space to write long paragraphs because it's not effective. Keep your message short. Research from Boomerangsuggests that your email should be between 50 and 125 words. The messages in their test sample got at least a 50% response rate. While you're experimenting with template designs, you can also try different images. Try one large background image with text written over it. Another option is to include a picture within the content. Your A/B template test can help determine which method is more effective. Swapping out one image for another is something else you can test. For example, if you're using a picture of a person, test the difference between a male and female. ConclusionA/B testingworks. If you used these tests to successfully optimize conversions on your website, the same concept could be applied to your email marketing strategy. Before you get started, come up with a valid hypothesis. Don't start changing things without a plan. Test onlyone variationat a time. After you've come up with conclusive results for your first test, you can move on to something else. Try testing your:
The email marketing service you're currently using may have an option for you to run and analyze the results from an A/B test. If not, it's no problem. You can manually run an A/B test by creating two separate groups and two different campaigns. This is still an effective method. A/B tests will help increase opens, clicks, and conversions. Ultimately, this can generate more revenue for your business. How will you modify the call to action in the first variation of your A/B test?
You might be part of the group of marketers that feel as though your email campaigns are missing something. Only, you're not sure what they're missing. You've reversed engineered your competitor's email campaigns to see what they're doing, but the truth of the matter is, you will never know the strategy behind their success because you don't have access to their analytics. So you end up in a cycle. You create emails, you write good copy and add relevant graphics, just like the guides tell you to, but you still don't see the kind of results everyone talks about. Email marketing is consistently one of the best marketing avenues to use. So why aren't you seeing the same results? Many marketers make the mistake of not paying close enough attention to their email marketing analytics. If you're a marketer who isn't using data to fuel and guide your email-marketing campaigns, you're leaving serious money on the table. Data allows you to see what does and doesn't work so you can optimize your emails to perform better. It's a tricky, but rewarding process and involves taking raw data and turning it into actionable insights to help improve your email-marketing campaigns. Doing so will put you leagues above your competitors. In this post, I'm going to explain the importance of using analytics to improve the way you segment your emails, improve the email content you send out and create winning email campaigns. It doesn't matter how brilliantly written your emails are, or how many well designed images they contain if you don't see any results or can't measure whether your efforts are helping you achieve your overarching goals. Let's dive in! Choosing a VendorLooking at the current landscape of email marketing and the software available is often overwhelming. If you've already chosen, and are happy with your provider, move on to the next section. If we look at the email marketing software market radar below, it's clear to see there are a number of different vendors to choose from. Choosing an email service provider largely depends on what you hope to achieve and what feature(s) you're looking for. Source: Email Marketing Market Research, Crozdesk Taking into account vendor size and the strength of the solution may help you evaluate which vendor to choose from based on your business' personal requirements. For example, if you're looking to send automated, triggered email messages, you might use a tool like Kissmetrics Campaigns or you might choose to use a provider like Sendgrid if you're looking to just send newsletters. The issue, though, is although your choice of vendor will have some say in the types of campaigns you can run, they only go so far with providing you an honest view of how your campaigns are performing and what you need to do to improve them. If you are looking to improve your email-marketing campaigns, you need to consider utilizing analytics to provide you with the core insight into how your current campaigns are performing against your preset goals. Know Your Goals Before Choosing KPIsBefore you begin, think about what you hope to achieve from it. You need to set goals. Where most marketers go wrong is thinking their goals should be things like:
Although these are some good metrics to follow (more on that later) they're not goals. Your goals should align with your business goals. For example, you might choose to do email marketing in the hope of generating more leads, growing your subscriber base or converting more leads into customers. Note: you can have more than one goal, but you'll have to tailor each metric to each individual goal. When you've chosen the goal of your campaign, it's time to work out which metrics you should be using to track the progress of your goal. For example, 73% marketers identified click-through rate as being one of the most useful metrics for measuring performance. But let's think about that for a second. Say you're the marketing manager at a SaaS company, you might want to increase your open and click through rate. The problem is, open rate and click-through rates are known as process metrics. They indicate the order of events that occur from when an email is sent to when it reaches the subscriber. But they shouldn't be goals in and of themselves. Now if we reframe the situation and change our goal to: increase the number of free trial sign ups. The reason isolating metrics is counter-productive is because it doesn't give you the full picture. Within your last campaign, suppose you increased your clickthrough rate. You might think that's good, but the key question you need to answer is, did that increase the number of free trial signups? If the answer to that question is no, you need to work out why. If it did increase the number of free trial sign-ups, can you correlate that to your click through rate? Now, you can see how things like changing your email subject can have a direct effect on your click through rate, which in turn has a direct effect on your conversions. The key is to not take each metric as an individual number, but to use these process metrics and incorporate them into your overall marketing strategy to increase your revenue, or whatever your end goal might be. If your goal is to attract more visitors to your website you probably want to focus on growing your subscriber list. So this is the metric you need to be following. But what if your goal is to increase the number of leads generated? If this is the case, you should be tracking how many leads you're capturing each day/week/month. Choosing the metrics to follow largely depends on what sort of business you're running. A SaaS company might have different goals than an e-commerce company who also might have different goals to a non-profit. Moving Beyond Basic DataIf you want to win at email marketing, you need to think seriously about your analytics. There is a lot to track, so I've broken the core analytics down to focus on into three categories: basic, advanced and expert, with each getting harder to come by as you go up the scale. Basic metricsBasic metrics are easily accessible and are also known as behavior metrics. Most basic email service providers will give you some information around these metrics. They include things like:
You might already be looking at behavior metrics to improve your campaigns. But you're ruining your chances of developing a winning strategy if this is the only data you consider. What's the point in having 100% open rates if no one purchases? Something has obviously gone wrong and understanding analytics further will help you understand why and where it all went wrong. An open case for advanced email metricsThe thing about the basic metrics like click through and open rates, they're basic metrics and simplistic. In that whilst they tell you who opened the email and who clicked through, they don't tell you much else. Moving beyond these basic metrics, consider your click-to-open-rate. This metric tells you how engaging your email content is. It helps you understand whether the content of your email resonates well with your specified target segment. Working out this metric will provide you with a percentage of your subscribers who opened your email and also clicked on a link. It helps give you a clearer idea of the entire story. So if one of your goals is to create engaging content, your aim should be to increase this percentage. Your click-to-open rate gives you an indication of how your subscribers behaved when they opened your email. It gives you a complete, holistic view of how your email content is performing. For example, you might have a low click-through rate, but you can still have a solid click-to-open-rate. If you judge your emails on just one metric, you won't get the full picture. When you create a Kissmetrics Campaign, you set a Conversion goal. If the users you sent these emails to convert, they'll count in this converted list. So for example, if you send out an email to people about a sale, you can select your Conversion as Purchase. If they read your email, then go on to Purchase, they've converted. Advanced metricsThe advanced metrics looks at the results of your campaigns. They help you answer things like:
Expert metricsExpert metrics are also referred to as experience analysis. Experience analysis explains why your subscribers do what they do. Expert metrics are important because they show you what drives your subscriber's decisions and the motivations behind the choices they make when they choose to engage or ignore your email. Instead of just knowing how many of your emails within a specific campaign were opened, you'll understand why they have a higher rate. You'll have a greater understanding why revenue is higher or lower at certain parts of the year, for example. Now the issue is, for this area of analysis, you probably won't be able to gather this data from your email provider. You'll have to look further afield to get into your audience's mind and understand exactly what makes them tick. It's no lie that understanding the behavior analysis is important, but it only goes so far. If you want real insight you need to know whether the people who are engaging with your emails are doing so because they're bored on the train to work, or whether it's because you framed your message right and they're interested in doing business with you. Using Your DataNow that you've gathered the right data, it's time to start listening and drawing the right conclusions. When you have collated the right data from your email campaigns, you'll be able to send better campaigns by first creating data-driven customer personas. You'll now identify who to target, when and why you should target this person and send them content you know will be useful to them. For a second, let's think about our own email inbox. How many times per week do you receive irrelevant emails that seem as though they have nothing to do with you? How many times a week do you consider, or actually unsubscribe from email newsletters? If everyone used their data to fuel their marketing campaigns, they'd have less people unsubscribing. Using a tool like Kissmetrics Campaigns will enable you to send automated, triggered emails based on user's previous behavior. The beauty of these emails is that they're not cold and they're not unwanted because they're based on previous behavior. These emails are in place to nudge the user towards something, whether that be purchasing, logging in, etc. When you start to use the right tools to get the right data you'll be able to: Define and segment your audienceWho is your audience, and what sort of emails do they want to receive? When you're defining your audience, let's not forget about your original goals from the beginning. In the example below, Pets At Home, a pet retailer, use the name of the pet within their email copy. They also ascertain exactly what type of pet you have whether that be cat, dog, rabbit etc. to ensure they only send you relevant targeted emails that you're likely to open. If you don't segment your emails, you will end up sending general emails that attempt to appeal to everyone but end up appealing to no one. It's shocking to think there aren't more marketers segmenting their audience based on data because segmented emails generate 58% of all email revenue. When you choose to segment your audience you improve the personalization of the emails you send. You can segment your audience by demographic data such as:
But most importantly, if you want real success, look at how your audience is behaving and segment based on that in relation to your overall goals we spoke about before. You might consider things like customer type, spending history, adoption status etc. Targeted, personalized contentOnce you've segmented your audience, you'll be able to send specific relevant content to different cohorts of people. 74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. Target messaging involves having an understanding of your audience and tailoring content and offers that speaks to them at the different stages of their journey with your brand. In simple terms it means using the information about the audience within that segment to guide your message. If you're a SaaS company and you have a segment of subscribers who have yet to try your software, sending them an email letting them know there's another chance to get a free trial will obviously be more relevant than sending that email to someone who is already making great use of your software. Email Marketing Shouldn't Happen in SilosAs we've said, email marketing shouldn't happen in isolation to your other marketing efforts, they should all be connected. It should be there to support your overarching, larger goals. Often, your email audience will be prompted to visit your website after reading an email. It's important to continue looking at the data once they land on your website to see if the whole cycle from email, to lead to conversion could be improved. Use a heatmap tool like CrazyEgg to see where your visitors are clicking on and interacting. Doing so means the hard work isn't lost by a poor landing page that doesn't perform. What's more, if you're already using Kissmetrics campaigns, you can use the platform to track website behavior too. Having a tool that tracks both the way your audience are interacting with their emails and your website will give you a much clearer idea of what is and isn't working. You'll not only get to understand the behavior, but you'll be able to see what they actually did on your site and see exactly who they are. Testing and AnalyzingEven after you've defined your overarching goal and the metrics you need to follow to achieve that, you should always be testing. Because your email-marketing campaigns are now data-driven you will have a clearer idea of what elements you should test. Focusing on the data will give you a clearer idea of what elements you should be testing. If your goal is to increase landing page sign-ups, you might decide to track your open and click-through rates. If you notice you have low open rates, but high click through rates, that should tell you that the content of your email is good, but you need to improve your subject like to encourage more of your subscribers to open your email. Analyzing your results in this way will improve your campaigns. It will give you a clearer idea whether or not you're focusing on the right metrics and also whether the things you're doing to improve your campaigns are actually working. In short, look at the metrics you've chosen, compare those to the desired goal and devise a list of ways to improve next time. TakeawaysHow do you measure your success? Do you look at your open and click rates? Do you look at the number of people who unsubscribe and hope it's lower than your last campaign? If you do any of these things, you're utilizing the basic core metrics most email marketer's use. But you're ignoring the most important and critical metrics that will actually enable you to improve your email marketing. Finding data isn't hard and most email providers will offer some sort of analytics data in order to understand how your current and past campaigns are performing. And for some marketers just looking at your open rate or click through rate is perfectly ok. But what challenges most email marketers is finding advanced data and finding specific data to make the right changes to campaigns. This post outlined how to define email marketing goals and use those goals to define which metrics you should be concerned about. I've also explained why you need to look beyond the basic metrics to gain helpful insights into your subscriber list and how they behave. So, now you should be able to leverage your own email data to improve how your email-marketing campaigns perform. What ways have you utilized email marketing analytics to your advantage? Leave a comment below. About the Author: Jordie Black is a content marketer and strategist helping startups and SaaS companies in the B2B space improve the way they connect with their audience through content. Learn more about her at www.jordieblack.com or follow her on Twitter @jordieiam to keep up with her updates.
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