Testing Ideas to Increase your Bottom Line

If you were to Google “email marketing best practices,” you would be presented with a long list of do’s and don’ts regarding every asset of sending an email. I could certainly write a whole series on spam words to avoid, best times of day to send emails, how to write a subject line, and many more. But even then, who is to say that your prospects aren’t nocturnal? That they don’t like super long subject lines, or that some email client in Vanuatu loves the word “free” in emails and lets them into inboxes, a-hem, freely?

When your bottom line sales depend on how much traffic you get through the top of the funnel, there’s only one way to ensure you are maximizing your specific prospect base and pushing as many through the funnel as possible, and that’s Testing.

Commonly referred to as A/B Testing, testing refers to splitting your prospect base into sections, testing different variations of emails, landing pages, ads, etc. on test groups, and then presenting the best-performing asset to the rest of the database. I’m addressing email testing specifically in this post.

Many of my peers “him and haw” when they think of having to create multiple emails, divide a list and wait to see results; They think “I’ll do it next time when I have more time.” Here’s a little secret…you’re never going to have more time! If it means starting a promotion a day late or pushing back an email, it’s worth it.

So how do you set up A/B testing?

Think way, waaaaaay back (well, maybe farther back for some of us than others) to 7^th grade when you had to do that science project with plants and what kinds of light encouraged the most plant growth? This is kinda like that. You have a control group and a test group to test your email design. Generally, you will divide your prospect list into 3 parts—control group (10%), test group (10%) and the remaining 80%. This last section will be sent the winning email once the test has been ran. If you’re unsure how to do divide your database, contact your email solution’s support team.

**Please note: If you have a large database (>1 million contacts), you may want to use two 5% parts for your control and test groups instead of 10% parts. These groups need only be statistically significant and remember, you want the winning email going to the largest majority.

Once your list is divided, design the emails. For the control group, design an email similar to those you’ve sent in the past (Email A). For the test group, change ONE element of the control email to see if it makes an impact on engagement (Email B). There is an endless list of email attributes you can test, but here’s a list to get you started:

• Subject line
• Personalization (Starting the email with Dear <prospect name>, v. generic salutation)
• Placement of call-to-action (CTA) button
• Color of CTA button
• Text on CTA button
• Copy
• Graphic v. text email

For more ideas, visit Anne Holland’s Which Test Won.

Once your emails are designed, run the test. Send Email A to the control group and Email B to the test group. Wait at least one day to tabulate results. Once you’ve determined which email outperformed the other, send the better-performing email to the remainder of the list.

Rinse, repeat. You’re never done testing and you’ve never got it all figured out. Mastering the art of email marketing is not a matter of “having the magic touch.” It is a matter of testing, testing, and testing some more, and being able to make business sense of the results and implementing them in a way that makes an impact on your bottom line.

For more information on email marketing and multivariate testing, feel free to email me, or message me on Twitter (@jennybeal).

2Checkout Adds LemonStand Shopping Cart

2Checkout has added LemonStand to the ever growing list of online shopping carts to use with our payment processing service.

LemonStand is a PHP eCommerce platform that’s flexible and developer friendly in every way. Full of amazing features, an easy to use interface, strong developer community plus a Marketplace to purchase and sell add-ons.

LemonStand also works with our new Direct Checkout.

The LemonStand integration instructions will help you tie your new PHP shopping cart with 2Checkout.

Introducing Direct Checkout

Today we are introducing our newest checkout product, Direct Checkout.

Direct Checkout is a simple payment form that gives your customers the appearance that they are still on a your site, which improves conversion while providing all the benefits of a hosted checkout solution. It works as an overlay iframe that collects a customer’s payment information allowing your site to remain visible during the entire checkout process.

Direct Checkout takes advantage of all of our great standard features:
• Customers can buy in 26 currencies
• Checkout in 15 different languages
• Customize Direct Checkout with your brand color
• Checkout optimizes for desktop, tablet and mobile devices
• Security with 2Checkout’s highest PCI protection
• Fraud protection

Learn how to integrate Direct Checkout with the Developer Documentation.

Carts that currently support Direct Checkout:
Magento
Loaded Commerce
osCommerce
ZenCart
PrestaShop
Wp-e-Commerce
Drupal Commerce
UberCart
VirtueMart
Spree Commerce
Moodle
LemonStand
OpenCart
WP Invoice
Checkfront

More online shopping carts will launch each week. Email your shopping cart to let them know you want to use our Direct Checkout!

Empowering Entrepreneurs Through Global Giving

Helping entrepreneurs and small businesses around the global be successful is our mission. That is why we have launched the Global Giving Initiative to fund small business owners who have a passion to better their lives and communities. So far our team has funded 51 loans to entrepreneurs in 27 countries; and committed $25,000 to the initiative for 2013.

We are working with Kiva.org to reach entrepreneurs all over the world. Kiva is the world’s first and largest microlending nonprofit aimed at connecting impoverished entrepreneurs to the funds they need to start and grow their business. The video below explains how Kiva works.

Visit our Global Giving page to learn more about the entrepreneurs we are funding and how you can join the team.

Zoho Teams Up with 2Checkout

Zoho’s invoicing application and accounting application now works with 2Checkout’s payment processing service.

Zoho offers online business, collaboration and productivity apps for small business owners and freelancers. In the finance domain, Zoho offers Zoho Invoice (invoicing application) and Zoho Books (accounting application) for users to manage their business finances and keep track of their cash flow.

The Zoho integration instructions will help you launch online business.

See all news of 2Checkout