Email Marketing For Web Publishers
Test.
No, that’s not a test of the ad:tech blog publishing system. That’s the bottom line of this session. Test. Test and measure. Test some more.
“You can’t overemphasize the value of that,” David Placier noted, “that” being the “culture of testing.”
So test. Test some more. Keep testing. Rinse and repeat. And as you’re developing your tests, which could be structured around one or more of literally hundreds of variables, here are the 10 variables that constitute low-hanging fruit, according to Barry Stamos: subject lines, sender lines, list segmentation, body text, offer specifics, day and time sent, creative, animations, call to action, and discounts. Of these 10, the first three you should be testing, if you’re not testing now, are: subject lines, creative, and the call to action.
A few interesting factoids: According to a recent study cited by Barry, the day and time an email is sent really doesn’t matter. Then again, it might. So test it. In the B-to-C world, html has more strength than in the B-to-B world, where text-based email seems to have a bit more edge. Then again, it might be different for you. So test it.
And one more: Laura Johnston offered up the equation, P+C=R, where P=personalization, C=compelling, and R=relevancy. A SWOT-analysis-style chart of Travelocity email campaigns segmented them and showed that a personalized offer plus a compelling price added up to as much as a 1,200% increase in email effectiveness.
Ready to start testing?
