In most of our studies, we see the open rate increase with shorter subject lines. Across a large sample, our highest open rates were with subjects that had fewer than 39 characters, but there are exceptions to the rule which makes it very important to test. In a post from early 2009, I wrote about A/B Subject Line Testing. While this plays an increasingly important role as your list size grows, it can also help to make big improvement for small senders.

Quick Tips for Subject Lines:

1. Be Cognizant of Inbox Restraints: some email clients will not display your entire subject, so make sure to have your key points at the front.

2. Focus on Targeted Copy: more important than the length is what your subject says. If it is timely and targeted you will see higher engagement rates.

3. Explore Dynamic Subjects: If your email platform supports dynamic content, experiment with using dynamic elements in your subject.

4. Test: The A/B approach helps increase your email funnel for each send and provide good data for future improvements. Take the extra step and test your subject lines.

The big win for Southwest is with their focus on email preferences. As we’ve discussed many times before, allowing your subscribers to select from a range of email options will be a win-win for everyone. Bronto had a good rundown of Do’s and Don’ts in this post.

Southwest started getting it right by having a very simple email sign-up and then making additional preference options available later. In the confirmation email they had the following call-out that was right to the point with great architecture and design.

On the landing page they had detailed preference options as follows:

Several nice things going on here:

1. They start off by giving you a great reason to fill out your preferences — so you can help them send you more relevant offers. Relevancy is key and becoming increasingly important.

2. Rapid Rewards: By asking for this, they should have access to detailed data on past purchase behavior which can be gold for segmentation.

3. Trip Related Preferences: They ask for items such as home airport and favorite destination, along with types of trips such as last minute vacations, business travel etc. This will provide Southwest with great information to further segment and provide relevant content.

4. Activity Related Preferences: Finally, they ask about activities you enjoy while traveling. This potentially takes their email program into another category by being able to provide partner offers, destination activity recommendations, and engaging content. I’ve seen Hotels.com and a few other related sites to this pretty well.

This is a great example of a company going the extra step to not only provide an email preference center, but one that is fairly detailed. Keep in mind though that this model would not be realistic for some smaller companies. By collecting these preferences they have the ability to provide some extremely targeted and relevant blow-dart like communications, but it creates the need for a more robust technical infrastructure and time-consuming content development. If done right, it can be gold — but make sure your foundation is ready to execute before implementing a detailed preference center. When in doubt, start smaller and scale up accordingly.

It has been a few weeks and nothing extremely targeted has come my way, but I’m looking forward to seeing what Southwest puts out and am excited to see how well they execute here.

Thoughts or questions? Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

Cheers,

Forest

One area often overlooked is having a breakdown of your subscriber’s email domains. Knowing this information can be quite helpful when developing your creative. If you find a large portion on one domain, it may justify segmenting them and developing a separate creative optimized specifically for that domain.

Some email platforms will give you a quick graphic breakdown. If not, you can always do a sort in Excel and manually determine your ratios.

Below are breakdowns from 3 different clients I work with

Here we see some differing stats. In the 1st and 3rd example, Yahoo represents 5.6% at max, while the 2nd client has over 25% of subscribers with Yahoo addresses. We can also see that in the 3rd example at least 22% is represented by education or government addresses.

Looking at these three, I was surprised at the low amount of gmail addresses. We see 9.3% in the 2nd example, but none in the 1st and 3rd!

Takeaways

1. Every list will be different and it’s helpful to know how YOUR list breaks down

2. Knowing this breakdown will aid in testing your email creative on different domains. You should be testing on more than your breakdown, but this can provide priority.

3. If you find a large portion on one domain (25%+), it may justify putting resources into segmenting those users and providing creative optimized specifically for that domain. If you’re list is very small, this will be overkill.

4. Also consider segmenting by domain and testing deliverability. (Note – some email platforms will do this automatically).

Cheers,

Forest

Questions or inputs? Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.

A client I work with manages hundreds of sites that collectively have thousands of service provider listings. Each service provider has a profile and we needed an efficient way to have them update their information, and notify them of their regional representative contact.

For this, we created a clean text-driven email with a bunch of personalization and some dynamic content. This allowed us to reach thousands of providers with the same email, and create an efficient system for getting updated information.

Below is a raw screen grab with filler content.

In the above example, there are several points of personalization and dynamic content:

1. First Name: Simple and easy

2. Organization Name: We of course want to personalize this with the name of their organization

3. Update Date: As a reminder, we included the date that they last updated their profile

4. Profile Link: This takes them to their specific profile

5. Info on Record: We have the Address, Phone and Email that is currently listed on their profile, plus a link to view the profile again to see the rest of the info

6. Edit Profile Link: To make changes, we have a link implemented that takes them directly to a page where they can submit updated information

7. Dynamic Content: We have a section for CSA contact information (their local representative) that we have dynamic rules set up for based on what product they fall under and their county. E.g. IF product=xyz and county=Los Angeles THEN CSA Contact = Jim Smith – jim@email.com

Below is the same screen grab with highlighted personalization elements.

A very simple email here creating a 1-to-1 communication and an efficient system. This email didn’t need flashy design, or excess copy — just personalized content and some top-level organization to make the process seamless. While the nature of this particular email is very specific, the concepts can apply to a broad range of initiatives. It’s very important to create a personalized experience with our subscribers, and with available technology email marketers should look at how they can better leverage their efforts.

Cheers,

Forest

Nothing has changed with the fact that testing should be implemented and will inevitably improve your email marketing efforts. I do feel, however, that there can be a risk of over-testing, or ‘testing burnout,’ if you will. This mostly comes down to available resources a company has and the expected return on marginal testing programs. If we put 10X more resources into testing and only realize an x% increase in sales, our testing program could be producing negative returns.

This has a more costly effect on smaller companies, as the scale of return is much smaller. [The marginal return from an x% increase in open or click rate is much larger for a big company with a list size of 5,000,000 vs. a small company with a list size of 5,000.]

For that small company, testing is indeed important. They need to make improvements to their email marketing efforts and increase sales just like every other company. But at some point a negative return is realized.

Example

• Let’s say a small e-commerce site selling backpacks has a list size of 15,000. Their monthly promotional email brings in $1,350 on average. [25% open, 12% click, 5% conversion, $60 average order]
• This company creates a testing plan that will require an additional 3 hours per month of company resources.
• After the test, they increase their metrics to: [28% open, 15% click, 5% conversion, $60 average order]. In this case we see a $540 increase in revenue. Perhaps a decent result for the small e-tailer. Their gross testing return was $180/hour.
• Now let’s say they create a testing plan that is more robust and requires an additional 30 hours of company resources each month. (compared to no testing)
• After the new testing program, they increase their metrics to: [30% open, 19% click, 6% conversion, $62 average order]. In this case we see an $1,830 increase in revenue. Their gross testing return was $61/hour. Depending on their margins and several other unknown factors, this may or may not be a profitable scenario

These same metrics with a big competitor would have a much different result. e.g. If another company had a list size of 750,000, their marginal return on the last scenario would be $91,530 with a $3,051/hour testing return. Probably quite favorable.

So where do you find that testing equilibrium? It comes down to the unique situation of each business. Regardless of size, start small with your testing program and work up from there. Pay close attention not only to the increased results of your tests, but the amount of resources that go into your various testing programs. Time for different content, designers, approval, segmentation, deployment, review & analysis etc, can add up when you are introducing complex testing strategies.

In the end, you should test to see what testing portfolio is optimal for your email efforts.

Cheers,

Forest Bronzan 

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email

There are of course several other elements besides the subject line that you can be testing. But first, a few things to keep in mind:

1. Why Test?: To get better results. If you are not testing, you are not fully leveraging the email channel and not getting the best return on your efforts. Testing allows us to make incremental improvements to our email metrics. Below is a simplified visual description of the email funnel, where every metric counts. In this example, an additional 3% click through rate would result in 28 additional sales.

2. Be Structured: select a variable to test and keep other variables as constants. You will want to isolate your variable in order to test each variable independently.

3. Create a Plan: Don’t just go in and start testing. Create a structured plan of how you are going to implement your tests and keep detailed records of metrics so you can use the data to make meaningful adjustments to your program.

Some Elements to Test

• Subject Line
• From Line
• Content
• Creative
• Number of Links
• Promotion
• HTML vs. Plain Text
• Frequency
• Time of Day
• Day of Week
• Pre-Header Content
• Text to Image Ratio
• Landing Pages
• Location of Images
• Personalization

With the availability of tools to help us execute our testing strategy, there is no reason email marketers should not have a testing plan in place. Proper testing can help us make key incremental improvements to our marketing programs. If you’re starting out, start small and simple and build up from there. If you are running a sophisticated program, make sure you have a road map in place and system for accountability and measurement.

Happy testing!

- Forest Bronzan | Follow Me on Twitter!

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email

Many people ask about ‘average metrics’ with the desire to see how their campaigns are measuring up. Some industry wide statistics may be interesting and somewhat useful, but even more value comes out of measuring your campaigns with your own previous metrics. Every company is different and every list will behave in a different way. While it may be nice to know that the average open rate in the first half of 2008 was 24.86% for the transportation and travel industry, I would be very interested in knowing that MY travel company’s open rate was 22% during that period and now averages 26%.

Moral of the story here:

1. Look at some big industry averages, but pay closer attention to how your campaigns compare to your own historical metrics.

2. In addition to viewing and keeping track of metrics on a campaign or monthly basis, establish a system for keeping historical records of all the metrics you track.

Below is an example of a monthly snapshot of metrics. (Note these are arbitrary numbers for illustration)

(Click on image to enlarge)

It’s nice to see how our campaigns performed in that month, but I also want to see how they did compared to my own historical average. Comparing just to the previous month does not give us an accurate picture of how things are doing. One of the simplest methods is to create a trailing twelve month record. If you are keeping track of metrics each month, pull the average for the previous 12 months. This helps correct natural variance and provides a better picture of the direction your campaigns are going.

Below is a simplified example of how this might look for you. (Note these are arbitrary numbers for illustration)

(Click on image to enlarge)

In this example, we can see that compared to the previous 12 months, our total revenue this month was $2,266 lower. If we were looking just at the previous month we may be higher for certain metrics, but this does not paint an accurate picture of performance.

Setting up a historical benchmark guide for your email program will provide you great insight on how your campaigns are performing. In addition to looking at averages as we have focused on in this post, you can compare months, quarters etc. This can then be as simple or complex as you need and want to implement.

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email.

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Every email marketer you ask will likely balk at the shotgun approach and jump straight to a rifle strategy. While in theory this is ‘optimal’ – it’s not always that black and white. Additionally, many email marketers pick up the rifle, put on their sniper costume, and call it a day. While this of course is a great starting point, there are opportunities to have a greater impact with multiple approaches also utilizing a high powered blow-dart.

Let’s Examine the Shotgun, Rifle and High Powered Blow Dart

1. Shotgun Approach

Basics: Your email communications are broad and promotions are developed for a wide and diverse audience. In other email terms; you are sending one general email to your entire list with no segmentation and little or no personalization.

Why it’s Bad: For starters, you are not leveraging the email channel. With available technology, you have the opportunity to create targeted segments and dynamically insert personalized data. With a ‘batch and blast’ approach like the shotgun, everyone receives the same email and promotion.

However: What if you don’t have any data (outside of email address) to segment? Many companies starting off with email don’t implement all the best practices for list acquisition, not to mention proper tracking of email engagement for segmentation purposes. In this case, you may be limited to a broad email – and this creates an opportunity to quickly get important information about your subscribers for more refined communications in the future.

For starters:

A. Make sure you have navigation in your emails — which will help you segment based on click activity.

B. Conduct A/B subject line testing to better leverage that big send.

C. Create an email preference center to get more data from you subscribers.

D. Implement some email segmentation just from email engagement.

We of course want to strive for targeted, ‘rifle like’ communication with our subscribers – and when possible this should absolutely be implemented. But In the event you are unable to do this from the start, do begin collecting information that will allow you to make better use of the email channel in the future.

2. Rifle Approach

Basics: Your email communications are focused and campaigns are directed to a select target audience/segment. Promotions are extremely relevant and timely, and you strive to create the impression of a 1-1 communication.

Why it’s Good: Instead of sending one message to 100,000 subscribers, we may be sending 20 messages to 5,000 subscribers based on strategically defined criteria. Here we place our subscribers into meaningful segments and serve them relevant content. This may be done through individual messaging or utilizing dynamic content to execute our segmentation and content strategies.

This will have tremendous impact on the success of your email efforts, and should be implemented whenever possible. This is an extremely summarized description, but the basic premise is that we want to provide relevant and extremely targeted communications and promotions to our subscribers.

3. High Powered Blow Dart

Basics: The blow dart picks up where the rifle left off. With the rifle approach, we are creating targeted segments, developing relevant and timely communications, and creating a better experience for our subscribers. This may or may not include advanced personalization within the email, but we like to make sure it goes that extra step and utilize a blow dart, if you will, to truly strive for a 1-1 communication.

Here we make sure we utilize dynamic content when possible, and further personalize the communication by inserting data that is relevant.

Example of dynamic content from American Advantage

Example of simple personalization from Wells Fargo

Summary

1. Create targeted email segments and focus your content and promotions. Become a sniper and provide extremely relevant and timely communications.

2. If for whatever reason you don’t have data to segment, then start on a basic level with email engagement, reviewing your acquisition process, and upgrading to a better email platform if needed. There is no reason you can’t segment based on some criteria (historical opens, click activity, list origination, products purchased etc)

3. Create an even more personalized experience and utilize dynamic content, personalization, and even more specific targeting.

Cheers,

Forest Bronzan

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5 Common Mistakes with Email List Building

1. Don’t keep the sign-up process fast and simple: This is a big one. If you make the sign-up process complex, you will not get many sign-ups. It’s that simple. Below are some previous posts on email sign-up forms and process.

Good simple form from Express

Nice simple opt-in from New York Life

Flawed sign-up process from SCORE

2. Don’t send a welcome email message: Another huge mistake. When people sign up for your list they are expecting an email welcoming them. This will be one of the highest open rates you will see. Use this opportunity to kick off the relationship on a good note. Below are some previous posts on the topic of welcome messages.

Pro Flowers welcome letter review

Good things from Olive Garden’s welcome email

Sephora screws up their welcome letter

3. Purchase lists: It’s just not a good idea. Unsolicited messages have the highest spam complaint rates and have the opportunity to deteriorate your sending reputation. Focus on building your email lists naturally and you will have much better results from the email channel.

4. Automatically add forward to a friend folks: This is not true permission. But do include an easy way to join your mailing list in the forwarded versions of the email.

5. Don’t offer website sign-up: Sounds elementary, but some big players drop the ball here and don’t leverage their site traffic to build their email list. Here is a post about jewelry retailer Shane Co making this same mistake.

In a future post we’ll provide some more best practices for email list building.

- Forest Bronzan

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You also don’t want to send emails that are extra heavy on graphics and light on text. Aim for a ratio of around 60% text and 40% graphics.

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