Make email marketing work for your company by testing!

We all know email marketing has a high return on investment. To make email marketing effective for your organization, you will want to test every part of the email and sales process.

So what can you test in email marketing?

1. Subject line

The subject line is great to test because it’s easy to do and has a high impact on open rates.

2. From name

Testing the from name is also easy. While it usually doesn’t have the same impact on open rates as subject lines, it may make a difference. Typically I’ve seen better results using a person’s name vs. using the company’s name.

3. From address

If you can have robyn@abc.co vs. info@abc.co or sales@abc.co, it may increase open rates and click-through rates.

4. Headlines

Once someone opens the email, is it easy to scan. By testing headlines, you can see if different headlines perform better. This may be in terms of changing the actual verbiage, changing the size, changing the font style (color, bold, etc).

5. Paragraph vs. bullet

Similar to the above, the content of the body can be tested. I have seen both paragraphs and bullets do well. Test to see what works best for your audience.

6. No image (text only) vs. image

People always assume that images perform better. For cold lists, I personally have experienced a better return on text only. But test to see what makes sense for your audience.

7. Different images

Different images may work better with different audiences.

8. Media in the body of the email

Videos, infographics, images, charts, etc. are great to test within the body of the email.

9. Copy length

Some audiences prefer short emails while others prefer longer (more detailed) emails. Copy can be tested for emails as well as the landing pages.

10. Personalized vs. not personalized

Should you use their name or company name? Personalization can be in the subject line or in the body of the email.

11. Day/time sent

B2B companies typically see better results by sending during the week. B2C companies vary depending on the type of product. I’ve had great results sending to C level executives on Sunday late afternoon/early evening.

12. Auto filling forms

If you have a form, try auto filling the fields when the visitor visits the page. This is a great way to increase form fills.

13. Call to action/button

Test what the button says, the color of the button, the placement of the button, more than one button (and everything else). The call to action button usually has a substantial impact on conversion.

14. General layout

Test different layouts of the email as well as the landing page.

15. With and without social media icons

Should you include social media icons? Maybe or maybe not. Test this. And you will want to test the location/placement of the social media icons. This is a great one to test the click rate of the specific social media links to try to encourage engagement.

16. Landing pages

While many of the above can be for both the email and the landing page, I wanted to separate it. People often assume when a program doesn’t do well, that it’s the email. But you need to make sure you’re not losing them at the landing page. Test copy, layout, personalization, and more.