Remarkable email marketing optimization by Jordie van Rijn @jvanrijn
I’d like to ask you one question: how you are going to make your next test as remarkable as it can be?
This is the opposite of boring
When you are designing email marketing optimization, normally your goals are the best starting point: conversion or customer value. That might be translated into things more measurable like opens, clicks, sales, ROI, etc. The percentage of increase in the results of your optimization is called gain. And the goal is to get the best results you can for your email marketing. But that doesn’t mean that your tests should be boring. A test is even better when it is the opposite of boring: remarkable.
The remarkable optimization
I would advise everyone who is designing an A/B or multivariate test to try and make it a remarkable optimization. What makes a test remarkable? It has potential to be one of those great email marketing stories that your colleagues and customers will love. They just have to tell it to a friend because it has that “I like it and I have to share this” quality. Ok, you can call it a ‘viral optimization’ if you like. Another buzzword is born.
Keep it on the agenda
A remarkable test is also very useful. It will allow you to talk about testing, results and the importance optimization. In your organization, but also with clients. While telling an interesting story. Also it helps to keep testing on the agenda and get some broad understanding about what optimization is all about. Besides that, it could also make for some great PR material and make the company look cool.
Viral optimization
With a bit of creativity you could probably think of a few things you could test that would be remarkable enough to get some viral effects going in your company. Think about all the memorable, epic things you could do with product pictures, incentives and headlines.
Takeaway: Push the testing envelope! Don’t just test what you have to; test what you can do.
So get creative and share with us how you are going to make your next test as remarkable as it can be?
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Well actually there are countless ways to run testing, but not all of them are worthy of chatter around the water cooler. One suggestion I thought of quickly was to set up link tracking, but not only for products, thanks for sharing.
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Very good post, Jordie!
In our experience testing for landing page conversion optimization, to make it a *remarkable optimization* (ie., get breakthrough results) you need to start with remarkable hypotheses.
To accomplish that we developed a model called LIFT (Landing page Influence Function for Tests) and it is how we at WiderFunnel create hypotheses worth testing. Hwere is a link to the details – probably very useful for email as well: http://bit.ly/ZLFAF
Jordie,
Great post! Testing tends to be overlooked by many email marketers and thinking outside the box while testing can provide interesting results.
Cheers, Chris
Hey Jordie…
We are always thinking testing. We continually test subject lines and content against profile data. Newbees, Ninjas and ESP are all easy segments to test against.
One of our successful tests has been our subscription form to our newsletter. We offered a chance to win $100 Ninja dollars to use at one of our Ninjas against a $25 Amazon gift card. The gift card although less money won out by a landslide.
We will publish these results shortly so you can see how we did itt.
Let me know what you think we should be testing with our audience and we will give it a try and share the results.
Until them…we strive to make it and keep it remarkable.
Jeff
That is a great test Jeff,
The thing here is that although the value of the Ninja dollars might be more (100 vs 25). It is less targeted to the person (and probably more to a company, which has more Ninja spending). Making the Ninja dollars a bit more difficult and less easy to cash.
There are some variables that determine the perceived value of an promotion. Including alternatives, ease of use and time until use.
Maybe next time not testing the offer, but the presentation, graphics and copy!
Testing and focusing on the goals are the two pillars of email marketing simple as that !
To your post I’d add that marketers need to be more radical – often the a/b test is a few words or one image, that isn’t how you make leaps forward. Being radical is the only way to be remarkable!
Marc
Thanks for the poke to comment on this, Jordie. I agree with what you’ve said here, and what I’m hearing a lot from clients is that it’s hard to constantly push the envelope to try to “compete” with the new social-media-all-the-time landscape.
The most remarkable thing a marketer can do, in my opinion, is to stay true to their value proposition. One of the reasons Zappos is so successful is that they have a mission — to consistently impress on customer service — and they go after it in all communications and interactions. Your company is composed of real people as are your customers and prospects, so never forget that human element.
In addition, to bring it back down to email marketing, I think it’s remarkable when marketers don’t take best practices as gospel and continually test everything to find what works for them and their subscribers. In reality, there is no such thing as a best practice that works for everyone; there will always be exceptions. If you’re constantly testing the status quo, that’s impressive to me.
-Kelly Lorenz
Again a valuable addition Kelly,
Just let me play a bit of an advocate of the devil here. It might be remarkable these days to keep true to your brand values, but does that make for a great story at the coffee-machine? How could we spice those tests up a bit to make them more memorable?
- jordie van Rijn
Great read. One thing that doesn’t cross many peoples’ mind when thinking about testing is, “how do I make this sexy.” There are countless ways to run testing, but not all of them are worthy of chatter around the water cooler. One suggestion I thought of quickly was to set up link tracking, but not only for products. Try different headlines for articles, nuggets of information, testimonials, how to’s, etc. This will show you exactly what your recipients are interested in. I’m sure are plenty of creative people out there that can dream up endless ways of luring in a reader that would be worthy of sharing with a friend. Plus you’ll find out exactly which context is working to take a subscriber from their inbox to your website.
Andy thanks for commenting!
I agree we often forget how to make it optimization remarkable, or even sexy! What was the last optimization you shared with a friend?
Try this one as a test. Gives fascinating results …
http://emailgarage.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/what%e2%80%99s-the-ideal-moment-to-send-your-e-news-let-twitter-help-you/
You might also try some one-to-one sending time optimization