12 Tests to Optimize Email Performance

Email marketing is a requisite for small businesses in today’s mobile economy.

In fact, the Direct Marketing Association estimates that it provides up to a 4,300 percent return on investment.

With those kinds of results, small businesses should make sure that every email is earning its keep, and the best way to do that is through testing.

There is a multitude of factors that can influence email marketing performance rates. Two of the most common, subject line and send time, should be tested frequently.

For example, does your audience respond better to percentages or dollars off in subject lines? Do open rates rise when you use numbers or symbols? Are recipients more likely to respond on weekends or weekdays? During the morning, afternoon or evening?

Once you can answer those questions, these 12 tests will take you to the next level in truly optimizing your email performance:

1. Plain Text vs. HTML

Having a plain text version of your email is a good practice to ensure readability across recipients and devices, but it’s also a good idea to test sending only a plain text email. This type of email appears more like personal correspondence, which some recipients may prefer.

2. Sender (Company vs. Personal)

Businesses have many options when it comes to the “from” name of an email, the company name, the owner, a sales person or even the recipient’s individual point of contact. Testing each option will help small businesses improve open rates and overall email performance.

3. Subject Line Personalization

Small businesses may be testing subject line offers, but adding personalization to subject lines is an often overlooked option. Do your recipients open with a higher frequency if the subject line includes their first name or company name?

4. Call-to-Action (CTA) Text vs. Image

A common email best practice is to make sure your primary CTA isn’t only available as an image in case recipients do not have images enabled. However, it’s also important to test and know which type of CTA is performing best, images or text, and tailor your email template accordingly.

5. CTA Color

Small changes in color can have a big impact on performance rates. For example, landing page builder Unbounce reported a 35 percent increase in sales attributed to simple changes to a client’s CTA button.

6. Long vs. Short Copy

Marketers often cram emails with too much information. Sales messaging, recent blogs, customer testimonials, upcoming events, etc., may all go in one email. Instead, try breaking these emails apart into shorter messages or focus the email on teaser information that drives recipients to your website to learn more.

7. Stock Photos vs. Real Photos vs. Illustrations

Small business marketers have many options when it comes to imagery, so determining which types of graphics resonate best with your particular audience is important. Do they prefer high-quality stock photos, more real-life images or graphical illustrations?

8. Image vs. Animated GIFs vs. Video

Taking the image test a step further, most email systems now display animated GIFs well, allowing small businesses to insert movement into their emails. Another image option is to display a video still and link to the full video. Are your readers more motivated by videos and motion, or do they prefer static images?

9. One Send vs. Re-Mail

An often ignored email option is to resend emails to recipients who didn’t take the desired action. Behavioral targeting options allow small businesses to easily segment people who were sent an email but didn’t open it or those who clicked on a link, but didn’t convert. Resending the email to those recipients can be a good reminder that results in more engagement.

10. Frequency

Small businesses often fall into an email routine – once a quarter, once a month, every Friday, etc. Vary your frequency to see if it impacts performance. For example, if you’ve always sent emails once a month, try twice a month or even more. MarketingSherpa found that 61 percent of consumers like toreceive promotional emails weekly and 28 percent request them even more frequently.

11. Promotional vs. Non-Promotional Content

With the proliferation of sales and discounts hitting inboxes every day, it’s easy to think that each email sent needs to be highly promotional. Add some less promotional content to your email marketing mix, some examples: tips, trends, best practices or problem/solution stories, to see if this type of message increases engagement with your brand.

12. Links to Landing Pages vs. Website Pages

Instead of linking to pages within your main website navigation, try linking to a highly specific landing page related to your email content. A McKinsey & Company study found that landing pages sending recipients directly to an item/offer can increase conversion rates by more than 25 percent. 

Email marketing shouldn’t be a set-it-and-forgot-it process. Smart small business marketers should continually test, monitor and measure to make sure they are getting the most bang for their email buck.

Keep in mind that even small changes, like fonts, colors, and sizes, can have a big impact, so it’s important to test just one metric at a time leaving other variables consistent to know what’s moving the needle. Then small business owners can feel confident they’re smart, efficient marketers.

Article Source:http://www.business.com/email-marketing/12-tests-to-optimize-email-performance/

Email Marketing : Writing a Newsletter

 Email Marketing : Writing a Newsletter

There are two things that you need to remember in order to make a successful newsletter campaign. According to Tamara Gielen, an independent email marketing consultant, the success of a newsletter campaign lies in making newsletters that are relevant in content, and sending them to people with their permission. If you keep sending irrelevant newsletters to people without their permission, then you may just find yourself blocked from their email addresses or branded as a spammer, which could hurt your business terribly.

Getting Permission

Getting permission is the first step in making a successful newsletter campaign, and you can do this by asking people for their email addresses. If you are having trouble doing so, refer to the earlier parts of this eBook about the tips on how to successfully gather email addresses.

When people give you their email addresses, they are already giving you permission to send them your newsletters. Thus, be sure not to disappoint them - be sure to send newsletters that have great content and free of charge. You have to be careful though, of the so-called "rented lists." Some companies will offer to provide you with a list of email addresses that you can use in your newsletter campaign. But be wary. Most of the list they provide are old, unused and contains spam traps.

Create Valuable Content

After you get their permission, it's time to send them the newsletter. But what should your newsletter contain? Obviously, it should contain something relevant and useful for the reader. A subscriber receives tons of emails nowadays, and they don't have time to read all of them. Thus, they tend to ignore those that do not interest them.

Getting to know what your subscribers want in terms of newsletters can be a tricky task at most, but there are ways to do it. One is by asking them about it whenever they sign up through a checklist. Provide a checklist in the sign up page with a lot of choices. For example, you can make a "what interests you?" box with a couple of choices like arts, tips, events, and so on. Here, they get to tick the boxes of the things that interest them, which serve as your basis for sending them the things that they want. Another way is to analyze your clients' behavior. Since your list manager has a tracker, you can review the pages and links that your client has opened and viewed. This way, you can see what they are interested and what topics appeal to them the most, thus giving you an insight as to what newsletter to send them.

A Preview Pane

A preview pane allows your subscribers to view parts of your newsletter. Thus, it is important that you make your preview pane as interesting as possible.

One thing you should remember is not to add too many images in the upper part of your preview pane because it may take a while to load, putting off your customers at the very beginning. Instead, write only your company's name as the header followed immediately by the newsletter. Most of the time, the preview pane will only show the first few paragraphs of the newsletters in order to get your subscribers interested. If they download the newsletter, that is the only time that they can view the whole thing.

Write Interesting Subject Lines

Do away with the normal and boring subject lines for your newsletters. The subject lines refer to the titles that appear on their list of emails received. If your subject line does not interest them, then you may find your newsletters deleted without being read. When writing subject lines, you have to make sure that they sound interesting. A subject line that goes, "Christmas Dinners" is not likely to attract any subscribers, unlike a subject line like: "Great and Easy Christmas Recipes." Also, you may want to keep your subject lines short. The subject line is supposed to tell your subscribers what the newsletter is about without giving away too much information. Furthermore, most of your subscribers will not even finish reading the whole subject line before they decide whether or not to download your newsletter. Thus, make the first few words of your subject line as interesting as possible. Use a lot of adjectives and adverbs if possible, as this these easily catches a reader's attention.

Researching on Your Topic

Before you even get to write your newsletter, make sure that you've done your research thoroughly. Remember that nobody loves a half-baked potato - that is nobody wants to read a newsletter that isn't well-written and well thought of. In order to help make your research easier, you should have planned about the format and layout of your newsletter.

Choose the Right Title

The title is one of the most important aspects of a good newsletter. Your title should be catchy and interesting; otherwise, your subscribers won't even bother reading the whole content of your newsletter, no matter how good it is.

Be Brief and Concise

Avoid too many unwanted fillers in your newsletters. Don't start by telling your subscribers something that they already know. Instead, keep your newsletter brief and concise. Go straight to the point and drive home towards the topic. You can, of course, play with words and get a little creative with your phrases and sentences to spice up your newsletter, but be sure to stay focused and on track.

Impress your Subscribers with Facts

Adding a bit of statistics and other interesting facts to back up your claims is one way of impressing your readers. This helps to build their trust on you and your newsletter because they know that you did your research well.

Polish Your Newsletter

Proofread your newsletter. Make sure that every detail is thoroughly covered, from spelling, grammar and even punctuation. Your subscribers will almost certainly lose faith in a business who can't even write in straight English. These are some of the things you should consider when writing your newsletters. Remember that your newsletters reflect what you can give your clients, and if you don't give them something good, then chances are you won't have any subscribers left to send your newsletters to in the future.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Thomas_Howland/2319329

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 8 Steps to Effective Email Marketing Content 

  

Email marketing is rife.

Everyone is doing it.

Every day your inbox groans under the virtual weight of oodles of terrible email marketing.

There's everything from the brightly coloured and badly formatted ones from "SEO experts", to the "I'm emailing following our earlier call" that never happened.

Far from inspiring you to get in touch, they really annoy you. And if you feel like that, everyone else does, which is why it's important to get your email marketing content right.

The email you send is the recipient's window on your business. If it's poorly written and formatted, they're going to give your company and wide berth.

So what can you do to make sure your emails hit the right note?

These simple to follow tips will help you.

1. Scan

It doesn't matter how long you (or your copywriter) spends crafting your email, the recipient is unlikely to read every single word. That's why it's important your email is scannable.

The best way to do that is use sub headings that are persuasive and that contain key products and service.

If you're including an offer place it in bold print so it can't be missed.

Use bulleted lists to highlight benefits and make sure your paragraphs tackle only one idea in short, easy to read sentences.

2. Flow

There's nothing worse than an email that flits from one idea to the next without any continuity.

Make sure your subject line flows effortlessly into the body of your email and the final paragraph reiterates your main message, rounded off with a call to action.

3. Be emotive

Emotion sells. Fact. Make sure you use language that empathises and plays on their heartstrings.

4. Voice

This is something copywriters talk about a lot. The tone, or voice, you use in your writing will have a big impact in how well it goes down with the reader. If you have brand guidelines in place, your email's tone should follow them. But if you're not sure think about your audience and choose an appropriate tone for them.

5. Give proof

Why should I buy from you?

That's what your reader is going to be asking, so make sure you give them excellent reasons in the form of benefits that are backed up by facts.

6. I'll say it again

Usually you don't want to be repeating yourself in your copy, but in this case you can make an exception.

The offer in your headline should be repeated in the body copy and then again in the call to action. Just make sure you vary the language and words that you use.

7. Psychology

Yes, it's time for a bit of psychology.

Offer valuable information so they will feel obliged to buy from you. Use case studies and testimonials to show how others have already benefited (do they really want to miss out?). Limit the offer by time or number to increase scarcity - there's no way they'll want to miss out.

8. Review

Not only should you review your email for typos, you also need to check it to make sure:

• Your paragraphs are short and snappy

• The subject matter is relevant to your audience

• Your offer is correct

• Your message is short and sweet

• You can scan the email and still understand what it's about

That's really all there is to it. Next time you create an email marketing campaign bear these points in mind.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Sally_Ormond/12972

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