Are Your Email Campaigns Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Admittedly, prospects can’t convert if they don’t open the emails you send them,and so open rates do matter. On the other hand, the mere act of opening an email does not, necessarily, lead to conversion. In fact, conversion rates depend upon a number of factors that are independent of open rates.

Let’s look at some of these factors.

Subject line

Subject lines most closely affect a prospect’s decision to open an e-mail, but they also affect conversion, not unlike the way a well wrapped present invites you to find the gift inside.  When composing your email subject lines, consider the following recommendations.

• Be clear about your goal.  Each email message you send should have an objective and your subject line should reflect that objective. Confusing subject lines will reduce open rate, while misleading subject lines that are not supported by email content will reduce conversions.
• Be specific.  Let the recipient know why you’re sending the email and what to expect.   
• Provide continuity. In the case of a series of emails that are part of an online campaign, refer in the subject line to actions the prospect has taken previously. These reminders prime your prospect to take the next action.
• Be original. Be clever. If you are sending newsletters or one-off campaigns, which are not triggered by any particular event, fashion your subject line to pique curiosity. Try asking a question. If you delight your prospect, he or she will be more inclined to take further actions.

Timing 

The timing of the delivery of your email matters a lot. Identifying a day of the week that produces the best response can be crucial to the success of your campaign. If you want to get more sophisticated about timing, you can do day-part targeting, a technique used extensively in marketing and advertising, to identify the times of the day that email recipients are at their most receptive.

Test which day of the week results in the most opens and clicks for your emails. If you add time of day to your testing, you will have all the information you need to identify the optimal time to send emails to your prospect donors

Call To Action

The call to action has the most direct impact on conversion. A call to action instructs readers to DO something, like click, download, or subscribe. The call to action links the email’s content to your desired outcome.  Follow these suggestions to optimize your calls to action.

• Make the call to action short and clear. It should include just the basics. An effective call to action is between two to five words (at most).
• Create a sense of urgency in your call to action. For example, if you want your recipient to attend your legacy society luncheon, “RSVP Now” is an effective call to action. If you want your prospective donor to click on a link, try “Download Our Newsletter Today.” Both examples are short and have a sense of urgency. 
• Associate your call to action with an affinity group. Help your prospect feel compelled to take action, for example, by referring to similar actions taken by his or her peers - “Many of your fellow alumni have joined our Legacy Society. Join now!”
• Take advantage of your prospect’s desire not to miss an opportunity. A sample CTA might be – “Don’t miss out on our gift matching program.  Make a gift before December 31.” 
• Create one call to action per email. Multiple calls to action can be confusing and require the reader to make a decision, which may result in your prospect not taking any action at all. 
• Repeat your call to action. Place your CTA above and below the fold. This is a simple and effective way to increase clicks. 

Testing

Hitting the right subject line, sending your email on the right day, authoring relevant content, and including a compelling CTA are all factors whose effectiveness can be measured and improved through testing.   

A/B split testing is standard operating procedure for testing marketing messages and no less so with email messaging. In an A/B test, you set up two variations of the email, perhaps varying the subject message, or the CTA. Your criteria for success will depend upon the email element you are testing. If you are testing the subject message, open rate is your criterion. If you are testing CTA, then conversion rate is the metric to monitor. Send the email versions to a small percentage of your total recipient list, the test group. Half of the test group is sent email version A and the other half gets email version B. The result, based on the success criterion you have selected, determines the more effective email and that version is sent to the remaining recipient list.

The suggestions we have presented in this post will help increase the effectiveness of your email campaigns. But these suggestions are by no means all there is to know. There are many online resources that provide additional suggestions for mounting a successful campaign. Two that I recommend are ClickZ Email Marketing Best Practices and 7 Expert Email Marketing Tips.

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