How successful is your email marketing campaign? That can be a tough question to answer, especially since so many elements must work together to create measurable success. The real question, then, should be how you can quantify success in order to know when you’ve got it and what you can change in order to generate it. And that’s what testing is all about.
Before you start testing every metric out there, let’s take a look at two of the most important measurements of email marketing success as well as some of the elements you can test to determine how you can improve.
Open Rates
Sometimes viewed as the holy grail of email marketing, open rates let you know just how many people actually open the messages you send. There are three primary elements you can test to improve your open rates:
- Subject Lines
Test content topics such as price, incentives, benefits, and offer end dates. Also, test different wordings once you’ve chosen the content.
- Sender Name
Try using your company name, a person’s name, or a combination of the two as your display sender. Beware of making drastic changes too frequently, however, since your subscribers may not recognize you or you may be tagged as spam.
- Send Dates/Times
It’s usually best to test just one element at a time (i.e., either date or time, but not both) in order to get a true picture of when you’re likely to get the most opens.
Click Rates
Click rate refers to the number of subscribers who click on a link within your email once they’ve opened it. Here are a few elements you can test to boost your numbers:
- Link wording
Keyword-rich links tend to do better than simple “click here” links, but the important thing here is what works. Test several options to find out.
- Link color
Make sure your subscribers can recognize your clickable text as a link. Test basic blue against other colors, perhaps matching them to your overall color scheme.
- Call to action
Call to action tests can deal with wording, button size, button placement, color, and several other elements. Get creative to determine what elements you might change to produce the best results.
There are plenty of other elements and metrics you can test to boost the success of your email marketing campaign. The important thing to remember is that testing is the only way you can gather the information you need to achieve that success. Take advantage of the testing options available from eConnect Email to view vital stats in real time as well as printable reports and campaign statistics.