If you’re like most associations, email is a key way for you to reach both members and prospects. However, you’ve probably been sending email to the same people for months or even years. So how do you get your audience to tune back in and actually read the important information you’re sending them? Try testing these 5 email components!
1. Subject Lines
In just a few words, your subject line needs to capture your audience’s attention. If you’re reusing a headline you’ve sent a dozen times already, your recipients will become numb to your message and will stop opening your emails. So testing is key! Consider testing the following aspects of your subject lines:
If you’re not sure how strong your subject line ideas are, you can use a tool like SubjectLine.com to get a free evaluation and some suggestions for improvement. And as you test subject lines, be sure to look at the open rates to determine your winning approaches.
2. Sender Names
The name your email comes from is just as important as the subject line; this is the other primary piece of information a recipient has when they are deciding whether or not to open an email you sent. Test options like:
Evaluate the success of each option by looking at the open rates of the corresponding email.
3. Send Day and Time
The final major factor that affects whether your recipients will open your email is the day and time that you deploy it. While you can find recommendations online for the best/worst dates to send emails, and can follow general best practices like avoiding sending emails on major holidays, the best way to find out when your audience responds best is to test! Consider both weekday and weekend sends, and try different times throughout the day. If you know you have mostly business email addresses for your audience, it might be most effective to send emails in the early morning so they’re at the top of your recipients’ inboxes when they log on to work. If you mostly have personal email addresses, you may want to send emails in the evenings or on the weekends. But you won’t know until you try several options and see which gives you the best open rate.
4. Design
Once you’ve gotten your recipient to open your email, you move to your second goal: driving them to read your message and complete the action you’re encouraging. Design plays an important role in achieving this goal, utilizing color, layout, graphics, and buttons to drive your readers’ eyes to the key information and Call to Action (CTA). While you can create an infinite number of designs for your emails, consider testing these aspects in particular:
As you’re testing these aspects of your email design, keep readability in mind. Your email design should complement and reinforce your message; should be optimized for both mobile and desktop email clients; and should be accessible to all recipients. Measure the effectiveness of your design choices by considering your click-through rate (the percentage of email viewers who clicked on a key link) or your conversion rate (the percentage of recipients who took the action you wanted them to complete).
5. Copy
Last but not least, consider testing your email copy. Many associations carry over direct mail styles into their emails, writing long letters that bury key messages in full paragraphs of text. Instead, try to keep your email copy short and to the point. Break it up into short paragraphs. Test different formatting options to highlight key points:
Along with testing the way you format your copy, be sure to test your messaging. You can communicate the same information with many different tones or focuses, emphasizing upcoming deadlines, special offers, or a “what’s in it for me?” message that captures your value proposition. Test multiple versions against each other to identify the approach that works best for your audience, reading the results by click-through and/or conversion rates.
As you’re considering a testing plan, be sure to isolate one variable at a time—don’t test everything at once, or you won’t know what to attribute success to!
Still not sure how to optimize your email program? Reach out to the experts at MGI! Contact John Sample, Vice President, Business Development at jsample@marketinggeneral.com or 703-706-0346.