All good things in life are defined in terms of comparison. Pizza vs. salad, the beach vs. a parking lot, Apple vs. Android (I’ll let you decide the winner of that battle 😉). How do you know what tickles your fancy without at least testing other options? This, my friends, is why split-testing is crucial to your marketing plan. Stop pumping out email campaigns willy-nilly and start experimenting, testing, and comparing whether your marketing is doing what you intend.
So get out your beakers, test tubes, and white lab coats, and let’s start experimenting.
Split-testing? Huh?
What is split testing? Great question. Split testing, otherwise known as A/B testing, is a way to learn how you should market to your customers by testing different email variations against each other. Think of this as your gladiator colosseum, where we battle to find the sleekest, most alluring marketing plan through whatever means necessary, without all the gore.
Have you ever wondered whether your customers prefer a cheeky headline message or a straightforward call to action? No? Well, let me tell you why you should. In a world where our digital mailboxes are cluttered every day with deals, promos, and the occasional interesting email, first impressions matter. Your email marketing needs to understand what clicks with your customer base and, in turn, provokes them to click on the place order button. The only way to uncover this is to compare email marketing tactics in mini-experiments.
Every good scientist knows that to conduct an experiment, you first need a control, a point of reference to begin. So you first set up a control email and then change one thing you want to test in a variation email. Then, you send both these emails out simultaneously and compare the results. The most crucial part of split testing is to have a clear intention of what you are testing. For example, if you want to test the subject line of an email and whether changing the format improves open rates, only change this one element. If you were to change the email copy in your variation, you will never truly know whether the text change or subject line change helped improve customer engagement.
The example above highlights two different subject lines.
Variation A: 🍀 Fotomerchant’s March Newsletter 🍀
Variation B: 📰 [Newsletter] Fotomerchant’s March Happenings
Man, that sounds like a lot of planning and work! Well, I have good news for you; the Fotomerchant marketing team has an array of split tests ready to test on your customer base. So sit back, and let us do the experimenting for you. In case you were wondering, pigeon mail is the clear loser to sending an email. How do we know? We split tested it. It turns out pigeons are major divas, too hard to work with.
How will split-testing benefit you?
As your email campaigns end, the split test has run its course, and we are left with data as precious as gold. This data can enlighten us on how best to market to your specific customer base for future email campaigns. As much as a gut feeling is important, actual hard data backing your marketing strategy is how we roll here at Fotomerchant.
A customer shopping for dance images will undoubtedly be drawn in differently from those shopping for graduation photos. Or will they? You will never know unless you split test it! If your studio shoots multiple types of events, this makes for some fascinating split tests. Don’t target your different events in the same manner ever again! Market with precision and confidence only created through testing, testing, and, you guessed it, more testing.
Split-testing and seasonal marketing.
Does a seasonal marketing plan with split-testing built-in sound too good to be true? At Fotomerchant, we use data to inform our marketing plans; this is all the more reason to opt into our seasonal marketing; generate revenue and learn more about your customer base at the same time. So once Christmas rolls around, we can see what button size, header images, and subject lines are best at reeling in those sweet customer conversions.
Split-testing and gallery notification emails.
We have talked about marketing promotions, but what about your run-of-the-mill gallery notification emails? Testing these notification emails is just as important! We can set up your marketing workflow so that a winner is chosen after a certain period of time, and the winning email is automatically sent as the generic campaign. No fiddling around; the marketing platform takes the reins and chooses the clear winner based on the data generated. You can even select what is determined as a winner: conversion, click, or open rates. We want clear winners when it comes to split testing; that means no participation awards. Instead, we want to know what works and use that method going forward.
We can’t wait to see all the goodies that lie within your data. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the revelations made through split-testing. So don’t hold back any longer. Develop a well-rounded understanding of your customer base and stop stabbing in the dark with your marketing. Fotomerchant is holding the flashlight; we just need to switch it on.
