 In a tough economy most marketers are looking for ways to optimize the success, and accelerate the production time of email marketing. This is a byproduct of needing to do more with less, and maybe even the feeling that one has to justify the paycheck. No one is impervious to the downturn.
Fortunately there are ways to improve email marketing results and to quantify the value of your existence: testing and measurement.
In an environment where most marketers feel like they don’t have enough time to complete the basic tasks associated with their jobs, the thought of adding in testing and measurement seems daunting. The simple truth, however, is that having a testing and measurement plan saves you time, improves your decision-making abilities and agility, and quantifies your contribution to the bottom line. Stop wasting time and money - get started with your testing and measurement plan today using these helpful tips:
1. Define success. How does your company define success? Is it total leads or sales, a specific value or quantity of leads or sales, etc.? Don’t define success simply based on your email open rate because that is an indicator, not a measure of your contribution to revenue. Take it a step or two beyond the open rate.
2. Define the data collection process. Which data or metrics will tell you whether or not your email campaign has been successful? If success is 100 sales of $100 or greater, what process needs to be established to easily and accurately track these key performance indicators?
3. Test to find winners. Mitigate the risk of making offers that don’t produce the results you seek by testing critical elements of your email marketing campaign. Use hard evidence and metrics to drive decisions, rather than relying on your gut instincts and anecdotal evidence. Here are some of the variables you can test:
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Offers: Based on the unique definition of success for your company, determine what offers you think are most likely to produce the results you want from your target audience, then test them.
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Audience segments or parameters: This can be a useful test especially if you are unsure about whether one list segment is more valuable to you or not.
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Email creative: Sometimes something as simple as a different image or layout can elicit different behavior from your customers. When time permits, test one creative variable to a small segment of your audience and see if it impacts response.
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Response mechanism: Find out if your email campaign generates sales faster if you drive people to your Web site or to a store, for instance.
4. Test wisely. When testing, split test identical email campaigns with one variable change. For instance, if you’re a clothing retailer reaching out to the age 18–25 target group, you may want to offer one test segment 50% off Volcom sweatshirts, and offer another test segment 50% off Nor Cal sweatshirts, with all other variables the same including email design, content, and landing pages. That way you can determine which offer was most effective without worrying if some other element, such as placement of a button or the color of the font, caused different purchasing behavior.
5. Monitor leads all the way through to conversion. If you define success as a sale, then track your leads all the way through to a sale. This simple task can yield you a wealth of information including average length of the sales cycle, how your customers prefer to buy from you, and the total ROI of your email marketing campaign in real dollars.
6. Analyze the data you capture and use it to make decisions. Don’t stop at gathering the information; use it to draw conclusions and make better decisions to help optimize future email marketing campaigns.
For more information about how using testing and measurement can improve the results of your email marketing campaigns, join us for the one hour webinar, "Testing and Measurement in E-mail Marketing". Email specialists Brian Whalley (director of community at OurStage), Susan Cordts (president/CEO at Adaptive Technoligies Inc.), and myself (Cathi O'Sullivan) will share our success stories with you, and discuss how implementing a testing and measurement plan can help you generate better email campaign results and improve ROI.
Date: Thursday, April 16, 2009
Time: 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET
Moderator: Dianna Dilworth, associate editor, DMNews
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About the Author
Cathi O'Sullivan is director of marketing programs for Lyris. Her team is responsible for executing programs that delivery quality leads to the sales team.
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