Test To Impress
There’s heaps of advice floating around, especially in the commercial space, for how to improve response to email marketing messages.
But it always comes back to … you’ve got to test for your own organization and circumstances.
With so much in email marketing that could be tested, where do you begin?
Here’s a useful approach proposed by Kara Trivunovic of Strongmail, writing in email Insider. Roughly, from easy to hard, she suggests …
- Subject lines
- Sending time (Personally, I think this is becoming a non-factor, but as they say … test!)
- Audience (She’s talking about segmentation … absolutely)
- Call to Action (Here’s she talking about presentation, not the content. But certainly offer testing should be on the list)
- Content (Again, she’s talking style … word count, images)
- Personalization (How much helps? What’s overkill?)
- Layout (Your basic email template … does it need refreshing?)
- Entire Campaigns
Not a bad checklist. Anything to add? How about: who is the message from?
Tom
3 responses to “Test To Impress”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Great list! I think you’ve thought of pretty much everything. The only thing I can add is testing whether one email or a series works better (and perhaps this is subsumed under “entire campaigns”. I think it would also be interesting to test a multi-channel vs. a single channel campaign. The former take more work, so it would be interesting to test whether they increase response.
Thanks.
Testing the name of the sender is definitely worthwhile.
Michael Carden from HR software company Sonar6 (www.sonar6.com) told me that they did a lot of testing around the name of the sender and ‘Michael J. Carden’ produced a better response than any other name.
Claire’s comments are right on..
Further, testing is key..but, having a scrubbed, robust and active email list is critical. Sounds tactical…but if there are no opens, non-existent email addresses or email filters moving your emails to spam…then the most well written email message/campaign is inconsequential. Need to spend time not just creating a good email content, but also ensuring the messages are read and activated upon! This is becoming a pressing problem for the industry..so, organizations need to ensure post campaign analytics to assess efficiency and effectiveness.