The importance of testing with your email marketing processes.

Email marketing takes time, energy, resources and, very often, money. Testing means you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t to avoid wasting them all.

We can all make educated guesses, but they’re just that. If we don’t test, we don’t actually know!

Even a 1% difference might make ALL the difference to your business - it could be that one person with that one need with that big budget who either answers the call to action, or ignores it.

6 things you should be testing regularly

1. The subscribe forms on your website - what position / wording / images etc generates more quality subscriber per website visit than others?

2. The timing, design and wording on your pop-up forms - I am currently running an A/B test on the pop-up forms on my website so different people see a different version.

3. Which of your subscribe sources are generating the most sign-ups? E.g. pop-up / website footer / home-page / checkout / landing page / email signature / social media channels / speaking events etc.

   Mailchimp does show a sign-up source in your contact records, but that’s often not enough to get a true understanding. Instead, set each form to add a different tag helps you understand where people are coming from very easily. This then helps you identify easily what sources are working harder for you than others.

4. Mailchimp (and most other decent email marketing platforms) includes a multivariate testing function for campaigns (also referred to as AB testing) - use it regularly to test the impact of the following factors on your emails:

   • subject lines - length, content, including the recipient’s name or an emoji for example

   • sender names - your brand name on it’s own or e.g. Bob Smith, Brand Name

   • times of day - just bear in mind that 9am on a Friday might have a very different impact to 9am on a Saturday so be careful what day of the week you run the test.

   • email content - length, tone, hero image, button wording, button colour, simple or snazzy etc.

     But be careful as to what “success” is in terms of deciding the winning version. It might be something Mailchimp can’t measure for you such as phone calls received or appointments booked in an unintegrated booking system. A higher click rate, for example, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve clicked on the most important link your email etc.

5. Split test your customer journeys - send 50% down a branch to receive one sequence, and the other 50% to receive a different one, and see which generates the best outcomes.

6. How many unsubscribers you get from certain campaigns - unsubscribers are not necessarily a bad thing, but too many can be.

Need help?

If you need any help or advice on this or any other topic relating to Mailchimp or email marketing for your own business’s specific needs, get in touch.

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