Email is still one of the mediums with an above-average return on investment. So, what are the different elements that can still optimize your emailing campaigns?
Before starting, this list is obviously not exhaustive! The number of possible optimization points is enormous and is often linked to the nature of your company's activity. For example, we will not talk about optimizations related to data management.
Subject and sender of the email
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Check that sender name that you use is recognized by all your recipients Your emails are given barely a fraction of a second for your recipients to decide to open them. If they don't recognize you, you will be ignored!
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Systematize the use of AB testing on the email subject line As the first step in the funnel, the opening is a crucial part of your optimization strategy. You can lose everything... or gain everything.
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Change regularly the criteria for your AB tests, without mixing them When you do a test, the objective is to learn something. With this in mind, you should not mix variables in order to be certain of the element that influenced the results.
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Perform your AB tests by segmenting the audience Doing an AB test on your entire population will give you an average result. But what if you had isolated men and women? Would you have obtained the same results in both segments?
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Centralize your test results in a document As mentioned, the purpose of testing is to learn. With this in mind, it is worth keeping a log of your tests. It will soon become an indispensable working document.
Content of the email
- Make your templates compatible with smartphone and tablet use : Do we still need to comment on this trend? By the end of 2013, if you haven't made it ... you will have lost a lot of money!
- Use multivariate testing tools to optimize your visuals 8seconds.net : This is a practice that is not yet very common for the bad reason that it takes time. However, the use of tools such as 8seconds.net can significantly optimize your campaigns.
- Reduce the involvement of clicking on your call-to-actions Between "Buy Now" and "Test Now", which action will require less effort? Decreasing the level of involvement of your call-to-actions helps improve your click-through rate.
- Improve the image-free display of your emails A large part of email clients and webmails do not display images by default. Consumers are therefore faced with a choice, display or not these images. You must therefore encourage them to either display the images ... or to click directly on your call-to-action!
- Give more visibility to your unsubscribe link This will be the only deliverability-oriented tip on this priority list, but it is an important one! Making the unsubscribe link easy to access is the best solution to avoid spamming from the user.
Landing page
- Use specific landing pages for each of your campaigns In your email campaigns, you try to find a different message each time, an original approach, ... for your landing pages, it's the same thing. You have to create them in parallel with your emails.
- Lighten the navigation to keep the visitor focused on the main action Without needing to lock the visitor in, you should try to direct them to the main goal of your landing page.
- Record the source of the visit at the time of conversion This is the only way to fully validate the AB and multivariate tests you perform in your emails. An AB test that wins in terms of opening may not win in terms of conversion.
- Also use AB tests on your landing pages Just like the rest of your funnel, your landing page also deserves to be optimized.
- Keep your subject line, content and landing page message consistent That's the whole point of a landing page, to stay focused on the same subject throughout the emailing funnel. Don't renege on your promises along the way.
Illustration: Kadellar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
