We talk a lot about testing here at iContact. Testing should be a vital component of every email marketing strategy because it is the only way you’ll truly understand whether your campaigns are performing to the best of their ability. While you might be happy with your current email marketing results (and this probably has more to do with the low cost of email compared to other channels than with actual test results), if you suddenly discovered that you were leaving money on the table with every send, you’d be pretty upset – right?
So how often are you running tests?
Change Your Attitude to Testing
The problem many marketers have with testing is that it is seen as just something else they have to do. When testing isn’t part of the norm, it becomes a real hassle and more often than not gets pushed back to another day when you’re less busy.
Testing shouldn’t be seen as an additional chore. It’s time to change your attitude toward testing and make it part of your everyday strategies.
Make Testing Mandatory with Every Send
The easiest way to factor testing into your regular routine is to make it mandatory with every send.
Simple A/B tests of subject lines or calls to action (CTAs) will ensure your campaigns deliver the best possible impact and help you guarantee the success of future sends.
If you haven’t done an A/B split test before, the concept is pretty simple. You simply send two different emails to two small subsets of your list (10% is an easy figure to play around with), and then send the most successful email (considering metrics like opens, clicks, conversions, etc.) to the remaining 80% of your list.
Remember: You can only test like against like (subject line against subject line, CTA against CTA, etc.).
A test send could be done in the morning for a campaign being sent out in the afternoon; for less urgent campaigns, you might want to wait 24 to 48 hours between testing and final send.
If you work testing into your daily/weekly email marketing activities, it becomes a standard part of the process, and you may find yourself wondering why you didn’t start doing it sooner.
How often do you send test campaigns? Share your comments below: