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Audience Development Strategy

Testing Email Campaigns: 6 Areas of Focus

Tips for better email marketing practices

Theories on what works the best in email marketing are great, but they aren’t complete. Even those who share their theories and have actively used their tips may not be able to help you. Perhaps they are in a different market or industry with a very different target audience. Just

Tips for better email marketing practices

Theories on what works the best in email marketing are great, but they aren’t complete. Even those who share their theories and have actively used their tips may not be able to help you. Perhaps they are in a different market or industry with a very different target audience. Just because something has worked for them, it does not necessarily mean that it will work for your email marketing campaigns.

This uncertainty behind email marketing campaigns is why we recommend testing before major email marketing campaigns. In this process, you will segment a small group of your audience members and supply them with different email components. The email content with the best responses in open rates, click-through rates and engagement can then be implemented to your entire audience. Here are six areas of your email marketing campaigns that you can test.

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Email marketing testing tip #1: Subject lines – Email subject lines are the most commonly tested parts of email marketing campaigns. Getting campaigns opened is the first step in retaining an active audience.

Email marketing testing tip #2: From name – Does your business’ name work the best for opens? Or do you a recognized name associated with your company? Often times, recognizable names work better than company names.

Email marketing testing tip #3: Content – There are a few aspects of your content you can test. Text to image ratio is one. Long copy vs. short copy is another.

Email marketing testing tip #4: Calls to action – When you want your audience to click, what works best? Do images work better than buttons? Does hyperlinked text work better than both images and buttons? It’s worth testing.

Email marketing testing tip #5: Email template layout – Are you using a header? Is your email newsletter snippet-based or presenting one featured article? Are you using images and columns that can be tested?

Email marketing testing tip #6: Sending – Have you tested the times you send your email newsletters? Perhaps a different time may result in more engagement. Trying testing between morning, afternoon, and evening to see which resonates the best with your audience.

Are there other parts of your email marketing campaigns that you actively test? Please share your tips in the comments below.

By Amanda MacArthur

Research Director & Managing Editor

Amanda is responsible for all the articles you read on the Mequoda Daily portal and every email newsletter delivered to your inbox from us. She is also our in-house social media expert and would love to chat with you over on @Mequoda. She has worked with Mequoda for almost a decade, helping to evolve the Mequoda Method through research, testing and developing new best practices in digital publishing, editorial strategy, email marketing and audience development. Amanda is a co-author of our four digital publishing handbooks.

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Contact Amanda:

Contact Amanda via email at amanda (at) mequoda (dot) com, @amaaanda, LinkedIn, and Google+.

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