BtoB E-mail Marketing
By Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon
If you want to learn whether your approach to email reflects the interests and behavior of your subscribers, A/B testing is your best bet. Wonder if longer subject lines are actually the ticket? Curious if more of your subscribers will click on buttons than on underlined links? Create two different email versions with a varied element, send them out, and then keep track of clicks and conversion.
Before you start running your tests, lay a solid groundwork. Remember the idea behind an A/B test and change only one variable at a time. Look at the best performances of your past emails to see which approaches you already know or suspect to be strong, and start choosing the elements you’d like to test from there.
Here are some ideas to get you started with creative testing:
1. Visual Creative
Testing two very different visual executions won’t tell you much, so change only one thing at a time (the colors, the image, the banner, etc.) in each A/B test. A few suggestions:
- Submessaging: Play around with placement. See whether a banner performs better at the top or bottom of your message.
- Imagery: Discover what types of images make the strongest impact on your subscribers. Test a product vs. a lifestyle shot, or an image featuring a middle-aged couple vs. a younger family. Choose the elements to test based on what you already know about your subscribers.
- Animation: Try including animation in one and a still graphic in another.
2. Copy Length/Content
- Subject Lines: Investigate the different performances of long and short lines, vague vs. detailed, or fun vs. straightforward. Pay attention to the opens vs. clicks vs. conversions—clicks may be higher for one type of line, but conversion rates may be higher for another. In the case of a newsletter or a frequent mailing, consider the different effects of calling out the specific topic in the subject line as opposed to the message vehicle name.
- Magic Words: Find out what's considered the "special language" for your industry—those few words that get clicks every time. For example, stating savings in terms of dollars ($20 off) or percentages (30% off) can yield different effects. Play with these words in your headlines, CTAs (calls to action) and subject lines to find out how well they really work for you.
- Length: Try a detailed, copy-heavy approach vs. a catchy, concise bit of copy that leads to a more detailed landing page.
3. Text Treatments
- HTML/Text: Graphically-rich HTML messages are generally considered best, but in BtoB correspondence, which is increasingly read on mobile devices, text emails can also perform well. If it seems appropriate for your audience, run a test.
- CTA Treatment: The call to action is the lifeblood of your message—make sure you're getting it right. Try a big button vs. an underlined link, and test different button colors, sizes and placement.
4. Timing
- Day of Week: Industry-declared best days and best times to send email often don't end up being the best guides. Case in point: If Wednesday is generally considered the best day for sending BtoB email, then everyone will start sending on Wednesdays, and Wednesday's skyrocketing in-box clutter will diminish audience attention. Think about your audience's reading behaviors and review past results to see if any days of the week stand out in yielding high performance, and run tests to learn more.
- Time of Day: Morning and evening are considered strong times to send B2C emails, while B2B emails are said to receive best click-through rates during business hours. If you're wondering when your subscriber base checks their messages, you might try sending an email in the morning vs. during lunch hour, or late at night vs. early evening.
The folks at the EEC have a string of "Double Dog Dares" in the works, challenging each other to try some quirky tests and watch for unexpected results. Whether or not you're ready to check those out and try something a little off-beat, we hope you're ready to start testing. Report back on interesting finds!
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Lisa Harmon is a principal and founding partner of Smith-Harmon, where Alex Madison is a copywriter. Smith-Harmon is a unique agency focused exclusively on providing premier email marketing strategy and creative services. Read more of Lisa and Alex's work at http://edm.smith-harmon.com/ and http://blog.emailexperience.org/make_it_pop/.
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