Are you testing your subject line?
The subject line of your email is the main thing (other than who the sender is) that will prompt a subscriber to open an email. So you need to make sure that you’re writing winners every time. A good way to choose the best subject line is to let your readers decide. Test a couple different subject lines the day before sending your email; the email that gets the most clicks is the winner.
Here’s how:
- Take a portion of your list and create two categories for your test groups. You won’t want to do this if you use Mustang List’s Subscriber Update link because these categories will appear on the Subscriber Update Page if you enable categories. Another option would be to create two small test lists. If you go this route, make sure that these members are not also on the main list, or they’ll get your emails a second time after you choose the winning subject line and send the final version to the main list. You probably want your total test group to be 10-20 percent of your list size. So each of the two test groups or categories (or lists) should have 5-10 percent of the subscribers on your list.
- Create your email. You’ll want to test your subject line one or two days before you’d like to send the final email. Send the email to one test category with one of your proposed subject lines. Send the email with the other proposed subject line to the other test category. If you created 2 small test lists, you’ll need to copy and paste the email message into those lists for sending the tests. Over the next 12-24 hours, monitor the open rate. The subject line with the most opens is the winner. Prepare the final email. If you created two small test lists, then you’ll need to put the final email in the list you’ll ultimately send to. Be sure that the members in your test lists do not also appear in the main email list or they’ll get the email a second time. If you created test categories within the same main list, it’s easy to exclude the test categories from the final mailing: just click to exclude your test categories under Advanced Sending Options when sending the final version.
- You can also use your test groups (or lists) for split copy (parallel testing) testing of other aspects of your emails. Test the wording of your offer: send one offer worded one way, and send the same offer worded another way to the other test group. Try different offers by wording them the same way, and putting them in the same design, making the only variance the actual offer: free shipping versus 10% off, for example. The offer that gets the most clicks wins. You can also test design this way. Make sure the subject, the offer and the copy are the same and change up different design elements (test these one at a time): the layout, color, call to action buttons vs. hyperlinked text, etc. The design that yields the most responses (gets the most clicks) wins.
The amount of testing you do will depend on the size of your list, your mailing frequency, and your response rates. Steady response rates might not warrant frequent testing and changes, but slipping response rates can be boosted by testing and implementing small changes. You can test subject lines every mailing or every other mailing; while you could test design every 6 months to one year. Test offers whenever you have two viable offer ideas or when you are relying on the email to pick up sagging sales numbers on your website at the end of the month. And don’t forget to revisit your results. List trends change—just because a certain tactic tested favorably at one time, doesn’t mean that the other tactic won’t be effective down the road. Retest from time to time to check in with your subscribers and see if their behavior is trending differently.