If you were given the opportunity to try two things at the same time to see which one would give you the most benefits for the least work, would you take the opportunity? Of course you’d do it!
Think about this. What if whenever you walked up to a girl, you could try a couple different pick-up lines at the same time (and without the girl knowing), to see which line would get her attention? You’d exploit your unfair advantage, I’m sure. 
Split testing = An unfair corner on the market
Think about your email campaigns. Whenever you work to compose and send one, you’re pretty much taking a guess each time, hoping that all the hours and effort you put into shaping the most grabbing subject line, the perfect offer, the best body copy and the most motivational call-to-action will make them open it and react. And then, that amazing promotional graphic you creatively designed. You hope your subscribers will not be able to resist that!
Here’s an idea! Why not take the chance element out of it and be certain next time?
When you split test your email campaigns, all you do is copy the original email, change any part (one or multiple), schedule the split test delivery and then sit back and watch the magic happen! Split testing offers a fast way to optimize email marketing campaigns. If you use split testing, you’ll be able to try out a couple versions of your message on a few subscribers, see which one performs better, and then use the better message for the rest of the subscribers.
For your next campaign, you can use the superior message as a foundation. You can then keep testing more elements, improving your email campaigns with each test. What’s the best thing about this? It’s amazingly easy! In fact, it’s so easy I don’t know why you don’t split test EVERY campaign! And think about it: Could you even try to do split testing with a newspaper ad or print campaign?
An easy example
Let’s imagine I’m a restaurant sending out an offer to my clientele to come in and eat on slow Wednesday evenings. Usually your resources (ad agency, in-house, etc.) are pretty much guessing at what offer is going to motivate customers to come into the restaurant. And you pay them for the guessing. The offer seems great. There’s a big enough, bold enough call-to-action. Hey, let’s try it. You press the send button. While you obtain okay open rates, you don’t think you did quite as well as you could have.
Using split testing, you are able to experiment with some variations such as:
* Sender/Envelope Info
* Subject lines
* Calls-to-action
* Images
* Body Copy
* Testimonials
* Personalization
* Message layout/design
* And more…
And with those options guess what you can do? You can get these results:
* Increase Open rates
* Increase Requests for more information
* Increase Click-thrus
* Increase Visits
* Increase Calls
* Increase your knowledge of what works and what doesn’t
Could be that a two-for-one offer isn’t as effective as free apps. How could you have known?
Do you have enough to think about now? Are you willing to give it a try for the next email campaign you send? If you’re an eConnect Email customer, we’re always here to help you! Contact your account manager for a few ideas and help you get started with split testing.
Good luck!