How to unlock the secret to EDM marketing success with A/B testing (+ 8 A/B test ideas you can try)
EDM, short for Electronic Direct Mail, is a powerful strategy businesses use to establish direct communication with their customers. Its purpose? Drive sales and highlight products while learning about their audience. EDMs recipients are customers who have chosen to stay in the loop to receive updates, promotions and information straight from the business. This presents an ingenious way for businesses to form personal, meaningful connections with prospective and existing customers.
How effective is EDM marketing and what are the benefits?
You may think that emails are passe but statistics have shown that EDMs have a potential ROI of a staggering $36 for every $1 spent. And here's the best part: Even as a beginner, you can harness the potential of EDM campaigns without spending a dime. Thanks to platforms like MailerLite, Mailchimp, and HubSpot, you can launch email marketing campaigns at zero cost for your first few hundred subscribers.
Embracing EDM marketing comes with benefits that can elevate your outreach efforts. By possessing and managing your contact lists, you can collect data that helps you better understand your audience. With ownership of your lists, segmentation and personalisation become effortless and aligned with your distinct marketing objectives.
An additional perk of EDMs is independence from social media platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook), which safeguards you from potential restrictions that might hinder your communication. Social media may be one of the most popular outreach methods today but you don’t have full control over your communications as social media algorithms are always evolving. By retaining ownership of your communications, you maintain a firm grip on how you connect with potential customers while building trust for your brand..
What is A/B testing?
Here's another reason why EDMs are so popular: you can optimise your campaigns via A/B tests. A/B tests are experiments where you send out two or more versions of an email to see which one works better. Usually, within a day, marketers can pick the better-performing email and send it out to the rest of their audience. It's a smart way to figure out what connects with people before sharing the message with a bigger audience.
Companies use A/B testing all the time to optimise results for their EDM campaigns. HubSpot used A/B testing by pitting a personalised sender's name against a run-of-the-mill company name in an email test. The outcome? The email version with a personalised name boasted a 0.53% higher open rate and a 0.23% improved click-through rate. These numbers might not seem like monumental shifts, but these modest enhancements culminated in a gain of 131 valuable leads.
Although A/B testing can guide businesses into making smarter decisions, a whopping 39% of brands haven't yet embraced this strategy. By adopting a robust A/B testing strategy, you can secure a winning edge in the realm of effective marketing techniques. Continue reading for a quick-start guide.
3 factors to note before A/B testing
1. Have a clear hypothesis
Lay the groundwork with a clear hypothesis. Define your objective and articulate what you aim to achieve through the test. Then, craft a specific hypothesis that's both specific and testable. For instance, you may wonder if the length of subject lines affects the effectiveness of your communications. Your hypothesis statement can be: With everything else unchanged, the email with a shorter subject line gets better open rates than the email with a longer subject line.
Your hypothesis should align with your overarching marketing goals, whether it’s improving click-through rates, boosting conversions, or enhancing overall engagement. This approach sets the stage for effective A/B testing that yields actionable insights.
2. Set a baseline for comparison
Creating a reliable baseline helps you make meaning of your A/B testing data. Begin by defining a control group — also known as the recipients who will experience the original EDM. This group of recipients will lay the foundation for your assessment and should be consistent throughout the entire A/B test period.
Next, find a benchmark by drawing insights from past campaigns. This allows you to anticipate the usual performance of your control EDM and compare it with your test EDM. By anchoring your analysis, you ensure an informed evaluation of the variations you're testing, leading to more insightful conclusions. For instance, if your average open rates for previous email sends is 25%, then you would be expecting the open rates of your email with shorter subject line be performing better than 25% if your hypothesis holds true.
3. Conduct one test at a time
Always focus on one element at a time. Whether you're experimenting with subject lines, visuals, or any other aspect, isolating a single variable is the key to unravelling the story behind your data. Testing multiple factors in one go might lead to a muddle of results, leaving you grappling to decipher what caused the impact.
For example, if you are testing subject line lengths — you should send out two emails with shorter and longer subject lines respectively, while keeping everything else the same. Once you send the email, check back within 24 hours to see which generates better engagement.
By isolating testing variables, you gain a straightforward understanding of trends. Importantly, this approach allows you to confidently attribute any differences in results directly to that specific variable you tweaked. This strategic method unveils insights that are not only reliable but also hold the power to guide well-informed decisions in your marketing endeavours.
To start, you can download the EDM performance tracker we use to monitor your A/B tests here.
8 A/B tests to try for your next EDM campaign
For testing impact on Open Rates (OR)
Your OR gives you a quick peek into how attractive your email is and it’s indicative of the first impression your email makes. Considering the flood of emails people get daily—about 347.3 billion worldwide—your open rate reveals the attractiveness of your email in the midst of the mess. If you're looking to boost your email open rates, there are a few tests you can run to improve your email.
1. Long VS short subject lines
Conduct tests using both versions to gain insights into your consumers' inclinations. Are they more to short, direct subject lines or drawn to longer subject lines with more information?
2. Presence of emoji in subject lines
Why do some brands include emojis in their email subject lines while others don’t? This depends on your brand voice and the impression you want to make with your audience.
If your brand is young, fun and vibrant, the inclusion of emojis within subject lines can infuse your emails with a touch of personability. This can add a friendly and relatable tone to your messages, resonating with your audience in a way that aligns with your brand identity.
3. Types of content — % off or $X off?
Find out if a percentage discount or a specific dollar value reduction featured in your email headline garners more appeal. This allows you to gauge how customers perceive different forms of savings and which resonates more effectively.
Test example:
Control: Save up to 25% on our bundled favourites
Test: Get $10 off on our bundled favourites
4. Addressing customers by name
Incorporating a personal touch by using consumers' first names in your emails can cultivate a sense of connection. This approach instils a feeling of familiarity and individual attention. By tailoring your emails, you not only capture attention but also increase the likelihood of meaningful interactions.
Test example:
Control: Are you interested in doubling your profit, [Name]?
Test: Are you interested in doubling your profit?
For testing impacts on Click Through Rate (CTR)
Getting customers to open your emails is just the starting point. The real goal? Convincing them to take a step further by clicking through the email, and ultimately converting them on your website or app. Below are some tests you can consider using to help you optimise your CTRs and increase your conversions!
1. Personalise your email content
Show your customers that you understand and know what they like. According to the survey results from Inbox Insights 2022, almost 60% of the most successful email marketers firmly believe that personalisation stands as one of the most effective methods to enhance engagement. Beyond addressing them by their first name in your email, you can offer customised discounts aligned with products your audience has recently shown interest in. Send a customised email against a generic email to see if it makes a difference.
2. Email layout and designs
Tweaking your email layout and design can yield impressive results. You can try inserting images and GIFs to see if they boost engagement or improve CTRs. A visually appealing email can leave a good impression on your customers and also lead to better open rates in future. Test out various layouts to identify which styles are both visually pleasing and strategically effective.
3. Timing and frequency of delivery
Getting the timing and frequency of your email delivery right can impact your campaign's effectiveness. Begin by delving into engagement patterns—take a close look at historical data to pinpoint when your audience is most receptive towards emails. Additionally, consider the time zones of your recipients to tailor delivery times for maximum impact.
You can also ride on the seasonability curve and align your email content with festive events and promotions. For instance, if you are marketing for a B2C business, sending a deals email on Singles Day (11.11) will probably yield better performance compared to sending it on an average day, given that your audience would “expect” to receive deals (and hence open and click through to them) on these days. This strategy ensures your emails reach your audience's inboxes precisely when they're most likely to engage.
Source: Lazada
4. Call-To-Action buttons
Ultimately, the goal in optimising open rates and hence click through rates is to get your audience into the conversion funnel, and increase the chance of them converting. You can test the placement of Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons, the size and colour of the button as well as optimise the text on the button.
Benefits of A/B testing in EDM marketing
A/B testing is the easiest and most cost-effective strategy to learn about your consumers while seeing immediate business results. Informed decision-making rooted in A/B tests guarantees investments are channelled into strategies that have a verified impact on ROI. Pre-testing variations before full-scale implementation also help to reduce risk. This commitment to optimising and testing ultimately leads to better strategies that yield progressively higher returns.
Here’s how one company used A/B testing to increase marketing effectiveness:
Mailigen, an email marketing company, used to struggle with open rates. Its email open rates hovered around 10 to 20%—which was the industry average, but they wanted to take it to the next level.
Through behavioural segmentation, Mailigen targeted those who didn’t open their emails and resent them with an improved subject line. The strategy clinched a 20.5% open rate on this second email. A week later, Mailigen targeted those who hadn’t responded to their second email and tweaked the subject line again. About 8.6% of those who didn’t open the second one responded, increasing the open rate to 29.1%.
Through segmenting and testing, Mailigen can better understand customers and craft more relevant copy for them.
The OtterHalf team has strategised and implemented ROI-driving email marketing strategies at Foodpanda, Chope, Tripadvisor and Cococart, and we would love to do the same for you.