Maximize Email Campaign Success:
15 Must-Try Split Tests
By Megan Ouellet, Director of Marketing for Listrak
Jan. 22, 2009
The current economic outlook has caused a shift in the way corporations and individuals plan their budgets. Processes have been streamlined, expenses are kept to a minimum, and purchases are made more carefully. Marketers need to revamp their marketing strategies so they not only speak to their audiences differently, but so they maximize their own budgets as well.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, marketers are moving away from expensive endeavors such as TV and radio ads and are reallocating their budgets to less expensive direct marketing efforts. This year, email and Internet marketing budgets are expected to grow at an above-average, double-digit rate.
Email is one of the least expensive mediums marketers can use to reach their audiences; and, unlike traditional advertising methods, email is interactive, flexible, and easy to track. It also provides the greatest amount of personalization and segmentation so marketers reach their audiences with targeted, specific information. The low cost and high returns provide the highest ROI across all marketing channels – it is expected that for every dollar marketers spend on email in 2009 they'll receive $43.52. Compared to non-email Internet marketing's projected $19.97 return, catalog marketing's $7.25, and non-catalog direct mail's $15.55, email marketing still delivers the biggest bang for the buck. However, in order to maximize the return on investment email marketers have to adopt better sending practices.
Because email is inexpensive, and because it gets results even if best practices aren't followed, many marketers have been slow to change their email marketing procedures and are still sending out a generic, one-size-fits-all message to their subscribers. If you are one of them, now is the time to update your strategy so you increase your deliverability, relevancy, response, and return.
Listrak, an innovator in the email marketing industry and the email service partner to companies like The Islands of the Bahamas, Hitachi, and Motorola, has put together the following white paper discussing the benefits of its split testing feature. This paper also provides test campaigns you can quickly and easily try out before deploying your messages to your entire list. Using Listrak's split testing feature, you will increase the results of your email marketing campaigns.
