Testing Emails

Testing of your email campaign is all important…not only do you risk your campaign being a flop, but you also risk your reputation being at risk if you send a badly formatted copy.
You can test the factors contributing towards the deliverability of the campaign as well as the factors contributing towards the overall success of the campaign, which includes open rates and response rates.

The key point to remember when testing is to use a control message as a basis for comparison. Don't be tempted by the ease of testing your campaign and test multiple parts of an email at once. Just test one facet of the campaign and compare it to the control message.
Have a checklist which needs to be signed off. Also have a written testing procedure in place and record your results.

Factors to be tested:

Personalisation: Test whether you should personalize the subject line, whether you should work the business name into the copy…..what other personalisation's are relevant to your message? Do they make a difference to the result? Personalisation should not only be tested for response but also for deliverability differences. Segmentation: Test to see whether your response rates improve if the campaign is segmented even further. Generally the more targeted the offer, the better the response rate.
Tone: Change your tone of writing to suit the recipient…for example if your audience are lawyers, you can be more formal in your tone. Don’t use the same tone when writing to both lawyers and graphic designers!
Time and Day: Test this thoroughly for receptiveness. It can be different for each sector within each country…Research your audience and don’t be scared to try out different times and days.
The length of the message: Test short messages, long messages…different lengths will suit different audiences and offers.
The lead: Recipients will stop reading if the first paragraph doesn't grab them. Use the "above fold" (preview window) wisely and put some attention grabbing statements or offer in there. Don't let the preview window be filled only with the company logo or header.
The offer: Test the offer/s thoroughly…Make sure the offer correlates with the subject line. Hard versus soft sells, Full-price versus discount offers, Different discount levels, Buy-one/get-one offers, Money-back guarantees, Free gift offer.
Follow up mailings: Test these thoroughly – both the copy/offer and the mechanism. If they’re automated, does the mechanism work? Is it simple to use? If using forms – check these aren’t too long. The simpler the response mechanism, the better.
Subject line: This is one of the easiest tests and one of the most effective test you can perform. Should the subject line be personalized? If you put an offer in the subject line, make sure it is relevant and supported in the copy.
The "From" field: Who is the email from? Should you use the company's name or an actual person? Who will the recipient be more receptive to?
Format: When testing the format, always be sure to actually send a test message - don't just preview it. It is the sending of the email which brings out symbols and weird formatting.
Call(s) to action: Are they easy to find? Who does all the hard work…you or the recipient? Make sure you have procedures in place and make it as easy on the recipient to respond as possible. Test the positioning of these calls to actions and how many calls to action work best?
Spam rating: Most reputable email service providers supply a spam scoring test. Use it in conjunction with your general testing. You may have a fantastic subject line, but if it gets blocked by ISP's because they deem it to be too 'spam like', then it's no good using it.
Deliverability to major ISP's: Does your email service provider supply a feature which tests the deliverability to major ISP's? If so, then utilise this feature….

So, in summary:
1. Test only one element at a time
2. Use a control message
3. It can be as simple as sending different batches with different subject lines
4. Test the spam score and the deliverability of the message to major ISP's.
5. Use these results for your direct mail campaign…instead of having to wait months and having to do an expensive re-run of the direct mail campaign, utilise your easily gotten email campaign results to use on your direct mail campaign.
6. Keep notes of all tests, as this is very valuable information for your future campaigns.

Kath Pay is Marketing Director of Ezemail, an innovative company that provides comprehensive email marketing solutions including a fully re-brandable Agency solution. For more information on how easily email marketing can be implemented, please contact Kath at kath@ezemail.com