VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Case Study: Test a Subject Line in 2 Minutes & Get More Clicks

Recently we did a survey on the State of Small Business, you may have received it. Our Marketing team performed a subject line test in the email. One subject line was very generic and one was a bit more specific. We split our list in half using the list segmentation tool. It took just a few extra minutes but from what we learned it was worth it.

The first subject line: Take Our Survey and Tell Us What You Think

We received 181 more opens and 35 more clicks than the following more specific subject line: Take 5 Minutes - See How Your Business Stacks Up

In this specific case it seemed to be that we had more opens and clicks from the generic subject line and more people taking our survey. This illustrates why it's important to be testing subject lines to get more opens or content inside your email to be getting more clicks.

5 Easy Things to Test to Get a Better Response in Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Testing something new or changing something seemingly small in your email campaigns can definitely tell you something about how your recipients will respond. You'll either get more open & clicks or you won't. But you won't know until you try.

Testing something new can SEEM like a lot of work but it's really not. If you're going to create an email marketing campaign anyway, it's just three more tiny steps.

    One: Make a copy of the campaign you're creating
    Two: Change a little part of the campaign (see below)
    Three: Test with a small portion of your list or split your list in two

These three simple steps could get you a better response to your next email campaign and it takes just minutes for you to do. Unleash the mad scientist in you with these 5 easy things to test within your next email marketing campaign.

1. Subject Line - If no one opens your email, it doesn't matter how pretty it is on the inside, so why not test two different subject lines? Here's an idea; look at your past campaigns and see what your recipients are clicking on, then include that offer or article in your new subject line. After you send it out compare your open and click rates to see if you got a better response than normal.

2. Offer - Test a % discount vs. a pricing discount like 20% off vs. a $10 savings. Run a test with free shipping vs. no free shipping or with an expiration date vs. no expiration date. Then roll out to the rest of your list the winning offer.

3. Format - Instead of including a sidebar in your emails, try removing it so that perhaps more of your content is "above the fold" or the part of an email or web page that is visible without scrolling. Make sure you've got some links above the fold so you can tell if it's working. If you get more clicks you may want to consider changing your format for good.

4. Links - If your email has 5 links to your offer, try including 5 more and see if your response increases. Read Are Your Clicks Happening Below The Fold?

5. Images - Try removing images and see if a text version of your email works better. How 90's of you!

You can either split your list in half and do the test or you can break off a small piece of your list and do the test a day in advance of your real email campaign date. Then roll out to your bigger list with the winner. Here is how you can do it using VerticalResponse.

One last thing, if you are going to test any of these make sure you test them one at a time so you know which change actually made the difference.

Unresponsive Email Recipients? Re-activate Them!

I bet you have people on your email marketing list that have never opened your campaign, clicked on a link or at least haven't in a long time, yet they haven't bounced nor unsubscribed. Don't feel bad we all have them. The question is, what do you do with them?

First, you have to get them. Many Email Service Providers offer ways to have access to them. With VerticalResponse you can either grab them by campaign in the campaign's "download center" or create a segment called "non responders" using the list segmentation tool.

Now the Fun Begins!

Once you have them segmented into their own campaign, you can start testing things on them to get them activated.

1. Send an email and include a link to your opt-in form to re-opt-them-in. On the page where you have your opt-in form give some examples of your hosted emails so that they can see the real value you're providing.

2. Send an email and include a coupon for your product or service. You might have to go overboard to really attract their attention and give them something for free, or just a really great offer.

3. Maybe they have a new email address but still have the one they gave you and they just don't check it. If you have their telephone number why not a phone call asking them if they've got a new address and want to be re-added to your list? If you've got their postal address send them a postcard directing them to a page with their coupon or offer.

4. Send a survey to find out why they aren't responding. Try a direct subject line like "Why haven't you opened our emails? Tell us." to pique their interest. You might want to have an open ended question box here since I'm sure you won't be able to guess at all of the reasons in advance.

Purging these names out of your regular mailings will surely give you an increase in your open rates, the key is to try to move these non-responders to "responder" status.

If you've got any ideas you're using, let's hear them!

10 Things You Might Not Know You Could Do With VR

Here at VerticalResponse we work really hard at giving you what you need to grow your business and be successful. We track every user's request for feature upgrades and rank them by how many times they are requested. We look at technologies you are already using to see how we can build a better VR. Then we build what we think are some really great tools and make videos for you to see how easy they are to use.

So here is a reminder about some of the things you may not know about already available to you in your VerticalResponse account so you can use VR to the fullest in 2008!

1. The VR Marketing Calendar - Last year I told you to calendar your email marketing campaigns and your tasks, then we gave you one...are you using it? Depending on where in the world you are it has holidays specific to you so you can plan around them. Located in the top navigation bar.

2. Learn List Segmentation - Don't be scared about learning something new! Segment your lists and target your recipients for a higher response. We spent 6 months in development and it's yours free. (Some companies charge thousands for a product like this!) You can now easily split your list to do subject line and mail day testing and so much more.
Watch the video or check out some common segmentation functions.

3. Use the Free Opt-In form - With one click you can publish your opt-in form on your TypePad blog or use our instructions for publishing it on your site or any social networking site you have. Put them in as many places as you can, so your list can grow. All of your registrants will be automatically available to you in your account. Did you know we've already created one for you? Log into your account and see. 
Watch the video!

4. Stop Copying Your Email Wizard Campaigns - We know, it's easy, you're busy, you might even be lazy but you have to know that our Email Canvas tool lets you bold, italicize, use color, even use columns. Create a whole new look for 2008! We've even pre-designed email layouts for you based on industry so you can just replace pre-filled content with yours! If you don't see your industry no worries, click around and see the layouts, you'll find one you like. 
Watch the video.

5. Compare Your Results - Use the VerticalResponse Trends Report to benchmark your own response rates by the industry you selected in your profile and how large your lists are.

6. Google Analytics Integration - Already a Google Analytics user? Simply check the box in your profile and tell us what domains you want your Google Analytics account to track. Now you'll see where your email recipients are going on your site.

7. Brush Up Your Skills - Attend a VR Product Demo or Webinar. They're live and weekly and you might learn about all of the new features we're coming out with. Learn how to segment your list, personalize your email and get better delivery. All demos and webinars are on our VR Events Calendar. We also publish them in our twice monthly newsletters.

8. Get Free Email - Refer your friends and we'll give you both the same amount of their purchase! Just log into your account and click on "Refer a Friend" in the "Quick Links" Vidget on your VR Home Page.

9. Get Paid - Free email not your thing? You're into the cold hard cash? Make money becoming an affiliate of VerticalResponse. It's super easy, check out how!

10. Meet Us Face to Face - VR is taking it on the road each month this year. We'd love to meet you at a local event. Check the VerticalResponse Event Calendar in the coming months to see where we'll be.

Scrubbing Your Lists Using VR

We've had a bunch of questions in the VR Lounge about people wanting to scrub, merge or segment their lists. (Plug: if you haven't been there, log into your account and click on 'Community', tons of people talking about email marketing.)

Here are two common scenarios and the instructions for getting the data you need in a matter of seconds!

I need to send a campaign but want to scrub out anyone on my list who received a mailing I sent last week. How can I do this?

1. Click the Lists tab within your account.
2. Click Segments in the sub-menu, then create a new segment.
3. Give your segment a name and an optional description.
4. Choose your Segment Type.  In this case select: Segment List Members & Campaign Recipients.
5. Click Save and Build Segment.
6. Click Add List Rule to select the list(s) you plan to use for your new email campaign, then click Done.
7. Now click Add Campaign Rule and select the campaign(s) that you mailed last week, then click Done.
8. Click on the OR operation (joins the two rules you made) until you get to EXCLUDE.
9. You can now click Save & Get Results and this will produce a set of results that removes any email addresses on your mailing list(s) that received the campaign(s) you sent last week. 
10. Go ahead and save this as a new mailing list and attach it to your outgoing email campaign.

I've got a ton of mailing lists, is there a way to combine them all into one master list?

1. Click the Lists tab within your account
2. Click Segments in the sub-menu, then create a new segment.
3. Give your segment a name and an optional description.
4. Choose your Segment Type.  In this case select: Merge List Members.
5. Click Save and Build Segment.
6. Select all the lists you want to merge together (duplicates will be removed based on email address.) 
7. Click Done, then click Save & Get Results.
8. You will now see the results of your merge with a grand total of all records combined and you can now save this as a new mailing list. 
9. If you'd like to go into your list management section of your Home Tab and now delete all the individual lists that make up your newly merged list as the last step of the "clean up" process you can do so as well since all the data is now available on your newly created merged list.

If you want other ways to segment, comment and we'll do another blog or webinar.

We Hear You! List Segmentation Trial is Extended

Boy you guys are vocal, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We have decided to extend the trial for our list segmentation feature too see how you all like it and how you use it. So instead of two weeks, you've got a few months. We ask ONE THING...that in the course of the next few months you guys give us some feedback on the tool. See ideas on segmenting your lists and data here.

Capiche? Thanks!

6 Ideas For Segmenting Your Lists

Slicing and dicing your list can be fun even without the Magic Knife! Even better? Watching your email marketing response rates soar!

True story: As you know every two weeks we send out a newsletter. One week I decided to go crazy. I divided our list by "Business Type". So for wineries, real estate and restaurants I sent targeted emails with "How-Tos" that related to each business. In the subject line I included the business type and in the email I named it "Restaurant News" and so forth. All of our other users got a generic newsletter.

What happened? Each of the business types registered double the open rate than the generic newsletter.

So what are some segments you can create that might register higher open rates for your messages? The key here is to collect and upload the data you'd like to create segments on whether you do it on your own, or you use the VerticalResponse Opt-In Form.  I've attempted to outline a few here.

Simple

A/B Split - There's nothing wrong with emailing your newsletter to your entire list by the way. But try this to maximize your send: the day before you mail take a sub segment of your list, divide it in two and use two different subject lines and send your email. The one that not only gets the most opens but also the most clicks is the winner for the next day's rollout.

Clickers - Create a segment all of your recipients who clicked on a specific link or clicked on any link in any email in the past 6 months. Then send them a special offer for their interest.

Non-Responders - Create a segment of all of your recipients who have not clicked nor opened and try different subject lines or offers to entice them to.

Regional - B2B marketers: Are you going to a tradeshow in a specific area? Segment your list by zip code then send the email inviting your recipients to come by.

Buyers/Non Buyers - Upload your entire list with custom fields that contain the name of the product they purchased. Then segment your buyers from those who haven't purchased from you. Send a customer appreciation offer to the buyers and an offer "they can't refuse" to the non-buyers to get them over the hump.

Advanced

For the advanced segment example I chose a winery segment: You want to send an email to your list offering the new chardonnay varietal and you want to send it to your recipients who are really going to be interested in this particular wine. There are two types of queries you can do. You can cast a wide net, or you can narrow it down.

To cast a wider net:

• Anyone who has selected they are interested in chardonnay on your opt-in form (20 recipients) OR
• Anyone who has purchased chardonnay (10 recipients) OR
• Anyone who has attended a winery event (30 recipients) OR
• Anyone who has clicked on a chardonnay link in an email sent in the past 3 months (50 recipients).
• Turns out there were no duplicates so this yielded 110 recipients.

This segment suggests that you want to basically take 4 sub segments and merge them. Notice the OR, this means that your list is going to grow bigger because you're adding segments.

To narrow your segment:

• Anyone who has selected they are interested in chardonnay on your opt-in form (20 recipients) AND
• Anyone who has purchased chardonnay (10 recipients) AND
• Anyone who has attended a winery event (30 recipients) AND
• Anyone who has clicked on a chardonnay link in an email sent in the past 3 months (50 recipients).
• Turns out there were 5 that met all of the criteria selected.

This segment suggests that all of the criteria had to be met when using AND and it turns out that only 5 happen to have met all four rules.

If you haven't heard VR now offers a super easy to use, yet powerful list segmentation tool so you can be smarter about the way you market. Then sit back and watch your response rates go Vertical!