With subscribers’ inboxes getting more and more crowded and the competition for attention increasing all the time, getting your subscribers to open your email marketing campaigns requires a touch more thought than used to the case.  The same goes for achieving clicks: why should a subscriber click on your campaign, and what can you do to increase the likelihood that they will?  The following post explains one of the tools that Sign-Up.to offers to help users achieve better response rates and gives insight into what actually caused the increased (or decrease) in response.  So…

What is Split-Testing?

Split-Testing is the highly recommended process of broadcasting different campaigns simultaneously, sending each campaign to a sub-section of the target audience to ascertain which is the most effective.  Alterations are made to an email campaign to create different versions that can then be used in the test, for example experimenting with different subject lines or layouts.  During the testing process each variation of the campaign is sent to a portion of the targeted subscribers so the results can be compared.  Metrics such as open and click-through rate are used to determine the best or ‘winning’ campaign, and once this has been identified it will be subsequently broadcast to the remaining subscribers.

Why should I use Split-Testing?

Split-Testing is highly recommended because of the effect it can have on the success of your email marketing campaigns.  As a marketer you want to ensure that your campaigns are as effective as you can make them.  Traditionally you would use campaign reports (such as those provided within Sign-Up.to) to see what worked historically and incorporate the factors that generated success into future campaigns.  You can still do that, but Split-Testing takes it to the next level and provides additional flexibility that before was not possible.

Using Split-Testing it is easy to try out different subject lines, different calls-to-action or even small things like different background colours and make sure the best one is the one that most people see.  If you plan, test and execute your campaigns effectively you can achieve big improvements in open, click and conversion rates that ultimately boost your email marketing return on investment (ROI).  With ever-greater demand for subscriber’s attention and busier inboxes this tool helps ensure that it’s your email that they read and respond to!

How does Split-Testing work?

Whilst many Split-Testing tools provided by ESPs focus on subject lines and open rates, and allow two campaigns to be run simultaneously (hence the term A/B Split-Testing), at Sign-Up.to we’re different and wanted to go further, providing more flexibility and additional options that some other ESPs just hadn’t considered.  Because of this, our Split-Testing tool includes:

1. The ability to include up to five campaigns in your test
2. The option to choose how the winning campaign is determined: either by open rate or click-through rate
3. Choose the duration of the test, from 1 hour to 7 days
4. The option to either broadcast the winning campaign automatically or just be told the result

Taking each one by one we can see how they work and why they are important…

1. The ability to include up to five campaigns in your test

Allowing up to five variations of a campaign to be included in a test provides much greater flexibility for marketers. For example, you could experiment with five variations of your subject line and see which got the most opens.  The same goes for your call-to-action: small changes to wording can have a massive influence on people’s interpretation, so five variations give plenty of room for re-wording to identify the one that works best to achieve the desired response.

2. Choose the winner by open or click-through rate

Open-rate is a great way of judging a subject line, but equally there are many other parts of a campaign that can be changed that will not affect how many people open your campaign.  At Sign-Up.to we give you the choice of which metric to use as the judge so you have much more flexibility to change any aspect of your campaign and see how it affects the performance.

Having the ability to judge by open or click through rate provides much more accurate judgement of campaign effectiveness.   Now it’s easy to see how small changes to any aspect of your campaigns affect performance.

Subtle changes to the arrangement of articles in a newsletter, the wording of your call-to-action, using different images or even using different background colours are all worth experimenting with.  Choosing to judge the campaign by click-through rate will ensure that the best campaign reaches the majority of your contacts.

3. Choose the duration of the test

Whether you are in a hurry to get an email campaign out or you have a little while before the deadline, Sign-Up.to’s Split-Testing tools help ensure the most effective campaign is the one that gets broadcast.  Choose to run the test from any length of time from a mere hour to a whole week.  We recommend waiting 24 hours as after this time the majority of recipients that would respond to a campaign will have done so, giving you the most accurate results with which to decide the winning campaign.

Once you have chosen how long the test will run for Sign-Up.to will automatically send the winning campaign to the remaining subscribers, meaning all you have to do is sit back and relax.  Unless of course you want to do further testing, in which case you can….

4. Choose the “Just tell me the results” option

‘Tell me’ tests are great if you want to run further testing after the initial test.  You may first test different subject lines and just be told the results, then use the best subject line with the different content in the next phase of testing.

The “Just tell me the results” option also brings Google Analytics into play.  Google Analytics integration provides insight into the post-click activity of your campaign recipients.  It is easy to look at this and, according to your campaign objectives, judge the test on metrics other than open or click-through rates.  Once your winner is decided you can simply schedule the campaign as a normal campaign, excluding those subscribers that received a campaign as part of the test.

The range of options available with Split-Testing will help to ensure that your campaigns are as successful as they can be.  Making the most of these tools will increase subscriber interaction and send ROI sky-high!

How do I get it?

If you don’t already have Split-Testing enabled on your Sign-Up.to account then contact your Account Manager or call 0845 6444 184 and speak to one of the team.

What is Goal Tracking?

Goal Tracking is a powerful tool that provides much greater insight into your email marketing campaigns than the standard open and click-through rates.  By recording the true effectiveness of your campaigns in terms of completed goals you can gain insight that before was not possible.

A ‘Goal’ is simply a recordable action, for example the downloading of a White Paper, submission of a request for more information, a booking or a purchase from an ecommerce store or website.  Goal Tracking is the monitoring how many of these goals were met and, where applicable, the value of the completed goals.  Importantly, you can also identify easily which of your subscribers met your goals, which opens up all kinds of possibilities.

At a glance and in real-time you can view reports showing, for example, how much revenue your campaign generated, who made purchases and what they actually bought.  Calculating return on investment (ROI) is easy as you can see clearly how much revenue your campaign generated, or how many of your other goals were completed as a result of the campaign.

Using this insight properly you’ll be boosting sales and steaming ahead of your competitors!

How does it work?

Using Sign-Up.to’s Goal Tracking API it is possible to record within Sign-Up.to information relating to the completion of your campaign goals.  Simply insert the relevant code onto the webpage on which your goal will be completed – for example, the purchase confirmation page or booking form – and create your campaign as normal.  As people click-through and complete your goals Sign-Up.to will record this information and you’ll be able to see this in your account.

How does Sign-Up.to report goal completion?

Sign-Up.to highlights the details of goal completion in the Analyse section, within each individual campaign report.  Along with other key statistics including open, click and unsubscribe rates, you can see at a glance the goal completion for each campaign, in real time.

By clicking on the ‘Goals’ icon you can see a summary of those goals, broken down into non-ecommerce and ecommerce goals, with the option to view a full goal report for that campaign.

The detailed report presents clearly the details of the goals that have been completed, providing further information for each goal. This particular report refers to ecommerce goals, highlighting:

• each subscriber that made a purchase
• the reference for that purchase
• when they completed the purchase
• the total value of the purchase

What can I do with the findings?

Now you can identify who completed your goals there are many ways in which to apply this knowledge and make your email marketing campaigns even more effective.

Taking the example above of the ecommerce goals this knowledge makes it easy to calculate the ROI from the email campaign.  You can compare this with previous campaigns to identify what it was that made the campaign so successful (or not), and use this insight to improve future campaigns to boost ROI even further.

With Goal Tracking, Sign-Up.to’s “Create lists of subscriber who performed certain actions” tools really come to life.  Being able to create new lists of subscribers on the fly from their activity makes it easy to enhance your email marketing.

Using this tool you could make your email marketing more intelligent, for example:

• Drive sales by targeting those that completed your goals to up/cross-sell them complimentary products
• Keep a list of regular purchasers to enhance future campaign testing
• Build a list of those that clicked but didn’t convert and pass it to your sales team so they can work their magic and turn failure into success
• Encourage those that didn’t complete your goals to do so using a different campaign with a stronger Call to Action or extra incentive

Sign-Up.to makes all this and more easy; helping you achieve returns you previously only dreamed of!

How do I get it?

To activate Goal Tracking on your account and start seeing the enormous benefits it can bring, simply contact your Account Manager or call 0845 644 4184 to speak to one of the team.

Essential to good Permission Marketing is a quality database of interested subscribers.  Contacting people who do not want to hear from you is spamming, and as well as being a waste of time and money it can also seriously damage the reputation of your brand. It’s much better to spend some time thinking about how to grow a list of subscribers organically.  First you must get people interested in what you have to say, and second, you need to keep them interested.  Here are some ideas that will help you.

1. Use web capture forms

One of, if not the best place to obtain new subscribers from is your existing website.  People visiting your site obviously have an interest in the products or services you offer, so there is a good chance they will be interested to receive relevant news and promotions in the future.  An attractive, visible capture form offering the chance to subscribe and telling the person what they would receive will help you attract new subscribers.  In addition, you can ask key questions that will help you keep future campaigns even more relevant and interesting.

If you don’t have existing capture forms you can build them very quickly using your Sign-Up.to account, likewise if you already have capture forms on your site these can be integrated using our API.

2. Competitions

Another good way is to run a competition and require that people leave their details in order to enter it.  When taking registrations give people the option to choose not to receive promotions, rather than simply adding everyone to your mailing list.  A common mistake is to require that people subscribe in order to be entered, but this can  pollute your subscriber list with people that are not genuinely interested in what you have to say, distorting your metrics and wasting money and effort.

3. Send-to-a-Friend

It is very easy to include a ‘Send-to-a-Friend’ link in your email campaigns, helping to reach people outside of your subscriber base and gain further exposure for your campaigns.  People trust their friends so are likely to pay attention to things their friends send them.

Whilst this is great for gaining exposure, you are at the mercy of the subscribers doing the forwarding.  A lesser known practice is to include a short piece of text within your email along the lines of, “Received this email from a friend? Why not subscribe directly?”  The text would link to a capture form to allow these people to become subscribers themselves.

4. Customer reviews

Another great way of capturing new subscribers is through the use of comment or review requests from customers.  As well as letting you know what your customers think of you this is also a great opportunity to get them to become subscribers.  Provided you keep the campaigns and promotions relevant, this will increase the likelihood of you retaining them as a customer in the future.

5. SMS Text-In

Text-In, for many businesses can be a great way to capture new subscribers.  The use of an SMS shortcode and keyword allows people to text in from their mobile phone and instantly become a subscriber.  As well as capturing the subscriber’s email address, you are also, by default capturing their mobile number: ideal for instant, last minute promotions.

As with the methods of capturing new subscribers mentioned above, you will need to give them a reason to want to subscribe, but using SMS Text-In can be one of the most effective ways of doing so.

6. Email signatures

In all probability each employee in your company has an email signature attached to all of their day-to-day emails. These signatures will be achieving much exposure as everyone emailed on a daily basis will be viewing them. Why not include a link to one of your capture forms? If you are dealing with these people it makes sense that they have an interest in your business, so there is a good chance that if they are not already subscribed, they could be persuaded to.

7. Keep it relevant

To encourage people to become subscribers you need to offer them something in return.  This could be the latest deals on holidays; gardening tips; great recipes; or even just a funny story from time to time.  When people subscribe you need to tell them what they will receive, and how often.  Sticking to these promises is extremely important in managing long-term subscriber relationships effectively.  If you suddenly start sending your subscribers irrelevant news or offers, or miss out on what you promised, there is a good chance they will lose interest and opt-out.

8. Stay regular

We have already covered the importance of keeping your content relevant to what the subscribers have signed up to receive. Another key thing is to ensure that you maintain frequency with your campaigns – almost as important as not contacting the subscribers too often is to ensure you contact them often enough.  Sending irregular promotions can work, but generally you would achieve better results by maintaining regular contact with your subscribers.

If you send too regularly there is a good chance the relevancy will decline, and even if the content is relevant people may still get fed up and feel they are being bombarded. This will result in falling open and click-through rates, as well as rising unsubscriptions – in both cases bad for your return on investment.

Sending irregularly or not regularly enough will again often result in falling open and click-through rates. It’s much better to send an email to your subscribers monthly with something relevant – even if it is a very short email – rather than just contacting them randomly.

9. Offer valuable content for free

It is commonly said that, “Everyone is an expert in something”. You are bound to possess knowledge that others do not, so publish this knowledge on a blog and as part of your email campaigns. Sharing the knowledge will reinforce your position as an expert and keep your subscribers and blog readers coming back for more, as well as putting you in a position of trust so they are more likely to want to do business with you. You can also publish this content on your site and ask people to submit their details in order to be able to view the content – when doing so give them the option to become a subscriber.

With our WordPress email subscription plugin you can encourage blog readers to become subscribers to further boost your subscriber list.

10. Value the relationships!

Subscriber relationships are like most other relationships in life: the more you put in, the more you get out. In a nutshell, the more time and effort you put into planning and executing your campaigns the better results you will achieve.  It’s no coincidence that the best ROI’s are achieved by marketers that maintain regular contact and plan each campaign to ensure relevancy and a strong call-to-action.

You need to pay attention to what made people subscribe to you in the first place and, just as importantly, what they have been responding to since they subscribed. If you keep supplying the right offers and the right content then your subscribers will be very grateful and your relationship with them will be profitable!

And finally….

Permission Marketing is all about permission, so it is vital that the opt-in is transparent and the benefits of doing so are clear to the subscriber. Whether it be using Capture Forms, Text-In, Competitions or Reviews, make it clear that you want to contact people and emphasise the key benefits of becoming a subscriber.

I often have clients telling me they hit a brick wall when coming up with content for their campaigns. So here are a few tips to get your creative juices flowing to keeping your subscribers engrossed in your emails!

1. Keep a diary with you at all times. If you’re anything like me you’ll forget the things that happened to you or you did last week, and more recently things I did just yesterday unless you write them down. You may hear something on the radio, see something on TV that your subscribers might also find interesting. It’ll also give you the chance to show a bit of human element to your campaigns…..they don’t have to be all business.

2. Give yourself time. If you know when you’re planning to send your next campaign allow yourself the time to work out the content, come up with new ideas maybe even give your template a lick of new paint freshen it up a little (it is spring after all). We’ve got ideas galore for new template designs why not ask us.

3. Find some creative space. Some of my best ideas come while I’m in the shower……now I’m not saying you should pen your next campaign in the shower but I’m sure there’s a park, room at home or maybe even your local library that will unlock the door to the perfect campaign.

4. Set the mood. Dim the lights, light some scented candles, put on that Barry White CD……..that’s how I get into the mood for Call of Duty on the PS3, but the same goes for writing an email. Last.fm is a great place to find music to inspire creative thoughts. I’m not advocating drinking but sometimes after an ice-cold beer my ideas start to flow.

5. Leave your comfort zone. Try writing about something you wouldn’t usually touch on. Go to sites like twitter or facebook and see what everybody else is talking about (using our new integration tool you’ll be able to post your latest campaign direct to your own twitter page!). By doing something different your subscribers won’t just associate your emails with your business but with quirky features they wouldn’t mind forwarding to their mates, all of a sudden your readership will grow exponentially.

Hopefully these pointers will help, and if you have some ideas of your own why not comment on this block to share with others.

As John Wanamaker once said, and many have paraphrased since: “Half of all money I spend on advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half”.

Things have changed a lot since those days.  With traditional ‘interruption marketing’ it was notoriously difficult to measure which parts of the overall budget were getting results and which were wasted.  Using modern methods it is much easier to monitor these aspects, so the old adage does not hold as much sway as it once did.

On this note I expect that for many of you, one of the attractions of email marketing is that its effectiveness is so easy to monitor.  As well as being able to easily target the right people with your message, you have the ability to instantly monitor the effectiveness of your campaigns by tracking open and click-through rates, and viewing individual activity so you know what individual subscribers are doing in response to your campaigns.

Tracking links is a great way of monitoring this: the people clicking-through are the ones most interested in your message and so are valuable to you as a marketer, and comparing the relative popularity of individual links gives insight into what interests your readership.   This is all well and good, but what happens to these people after they click-through?  Did they do do by accident and close the page before reading it? Did they make a purchase? Register for the event you are promoting?

What if you could get a list of your most active subscribers: the ones who respond fully to your call-to-action?

The Sign-Up.to Goal Tracking feature allows you to track the success or your campaign against a pre-defined goal such as making a purchase, signing up for a membership, or to attend an event you are hosting.  If the call-to-action involves a confirmation then the goal tracking feature can be used to record which subscribers have responded to your call.

The results can be viewed in real-time in the ‘Track’ section, and using the ‘Target Subscribers by Action’ feature you can build a list of those that respond to your call; extremely useful in helping you build a quality list of your most active, and hence valuable, subscribers.  Over time you can grow this list by updating it with subscribers after each campaign.  The list can be used to test out the effectiveness of different calls-to-action before sending the most effective to the main list; you can even run special promotions to these subscribers, thanking them for being ‘top customers’ and offering further incentives for them to purchase from you again and again.

Using Goal-Tracking also helps you to measure the success of individual campaigns against one another.  Tweaking content and experimenting with different approaches to your campaigns will help you determine what really works with your subscribers and what they are most responsive to.  Having a measurable goal will help you enormously to see the most effective approach and get better results as time progresses.

To find out more about Goal Tracking and get it activated on your account, just call us on 0845 644 4184 or email solutions@sign-up.to

Until next time…

12 rules of Christmas e-marketing

Well it’s that time of year again. Some pop band has turned on the lights down Oxford street everyone seems to be running around buying presents.

We can’t help you bag a bargain gift for your loved ones but we can give you some tips to help you get the most out of your email marketing campaigns.

1.    Use opt-in data
you’ll always get a better response from a list you built organically. Recipients will want to read what you send and they’ll trust you more.

2.    Content is king
Irrespective of anything else, you need to make sure you have great, compelling content that’s right for your audience – it needs to be relevant and interesting. This will take a bit of time and effort to put together, but that effort will be repaid handsomely.

3.    Branding continuity
your clients will be familiar with your website, why not send emails that are consistent with its appearance and extend its appeal.

4.    Don’t email too often
You’ve worked hard to obtain their details, bombarding them with emails could trigger them to unsubscribe.

5.    Make sure you email often enough
Just to make things even trickier, if you’re not in touch often enough then you’ll also see response rates drop rapidly.

6.    Call to action
Give your recipients a reason to read and interact with your emails.

7.    Always check before you send
Testing your campaigns takes two seconds and can avoid an embarrassing mistake (made by you) being seen by thousands!

8.    Attach a plain text version
Most recipients will receive HTML emails, but for those who can’t, a plain text email will ensure they read what you have to tell them.

9.    Keep data secure
Make sure you and you alone have access to your database. Selling it on or lending it to a friend is a sure fire way of losing contacts, and it’ll damage your reputation.

10.    Subject line
Make sure it’s relevant. A good subject line will entice your recipients into reading.

11.    Get viral with your campaigns
Encouraging recipients to forward your campaigns to their friends costs you nothing and can more than double your readership.

12.    Use a reputable email marketing company
Ahem…….Sign-Up.to need I say more?
Follow these rules and you’ll be having a very merry Christmas, pear trees, partridges…..the lot!

Remember if you need help me and the rest of the Sign-Up.to are full of the festive spirit and are more than willing to assist you.

Happy holidays!