Why? It is only after you start testing that you identify what is and what is not worth testing, so trying to identify the things to test 6 months in advance is useless. In my decade of email marketing I have yet to get past the first month of a test plan before it is ripped  up and a more flexible ongoing approach is taken.

Here is an example of what can happen. You start testing subject lines on your test plan, then within a few weeks you think you have some interesting results, but when you put them into action, repeating the success of the winning versions does not happen. The outcome? We need to test subject lines every single time to be sure of finding a winner and loser.

Another example is in testing pre-headers. You realise the email works better without it. Adding a pre-header just adds clutter and distraction from the main call-to-action. So if this is the case what other clutter can we remove? Immediately we might decide to change our test plan to see what else we can take out to reduce clutter.

One test not only gives you some answers, but it tells you what is next to test. You don’t need to go into the effort of writing a test plan.

So why do we do it still? Perhaps because we think it is the right thing to do. Google email marketing best practice and an ‘email guru’ will tell you a testing plan is one of the top 10 things to do, and Google is never wrong! Also, we feel we need to show management that we have a plan.

The best solution is to maintain a wishlist of things that might make a difference to your email programme and are worth testing, but don’t put a single date or order of priority on it. That way we still have something to show we are thinking about it, but we let the outcomes of our testing tell us what we should do next.

Now that MVT rather than just A/B testing is becoming available it makes it quicker to pursue your test ideas – no longer are you restricted to one test a month to keep results reliable, now you can go full throttle and test as much as you can create. As far as MVT is concerned, a testing plan simply adds bureaucracy and a hurdle to getting stuff done.

So next time someone asks you to write a test plan, you now know why you should tell them it is a pointless activity.

Maxemail has had a powerful A/B Split Testing function for many years, that allows you to easily test anything about your email campaigns, to random samples of your lists. We have now enhanced this to make it even easier and quicker to use, allowing you to automate the picking of a winner for when you are not around to do so.

Here is a screenshot of the updated Split Testing screen:

Here you can see there are new icons along the top to open, copy, delete or create emails for this Split Test. The best way of adding different versions into the test, is to create one version you are happy with, copy it and change the one element you are testing in the other emails.

The other new icon in here is the “New Winner…” option. This opens the following dialogue box:

Simply select which metric Maxemail should decide the winning version upon. For example selecting “Total Unique Opens” will mean Maxemail chooses the winner that has the highest percentage of unique opens.

The next dropdown allows you to specify when the winner should be picked and sent to the remaining people on your list, which have not already received one of these emails:

When you do start using the updated feature, remember these key elements of best practice:

• Leave it long enough for results to become clear – even a subject line test might take 12 hours to be reliable

• Use a sample size of at least 2,500 people per test, ideally 5,000

• Change only one thing per test, otherwise you will have no idea what impact each element has had. This includes when you send the email, so make sure you send the tests at the same time

• Choose the right statistic to pick your winner from. While open rate might appear to be the best statistic for a subject line test, we often prefer to use click-thru rate. This is because if one subject line is directly related to the offer at the top of the email, this might generate more clicks, even if less people open it. After all these people are opening the email because of what is in the subject line.

The new ‘A/B Split Testing’ function will be available 9th May, 2011, as part of the V6 release.

Emailcenter won the Silver standard award at the Travel Marketing Awards last night. We received this award for the innovative work we have done for environmentally friendly adventure holiday company – ResponsibleTravel.com.

This award is the latest in a long list of reasons why companies are turning to Emailcenter to deliver highly innovative and targeted email marketing campaigns to their customers.

By using behavioural data captured from their website, ResponsibleTravel.com were able to target their customers with highly relevant holiday emails, resulting in a 254% increase in conversions of prospects.

Read the ResponsibleTravel.com case study.

To discuss how behavioural targeting can help your email marketing get in touch >

Here at Emailcenter we love football and have started to sponsor our local football team – Northampton Town FC.

Northampton have had a number of memorable results this season, including a victory over Liverpool in which they beat them on penalties in-front of the Kop and Tuesday night’s triumph over league two rivals Crewe Alexandra.  Northampton came from a goal down to romp to a 6-2 win.

This was the first time Northampton have scored six at their current ground and the sweet victory was enjoyed by a good crowd including a number of us from Emailcenter.

Another memorable Northampton result in which 6 goals featured, was the game against Manchester United in which George Best scored his famous double hat-trick.

Watch the highlights

Last night, we here at Emailcenter won one of the most coveted awards in the industry – the award for “Best use of email marketing” from the IDM. We received the accolade at the IDM Business Performance awards, which celebrates the work of the most innovative and effective organisations in the direct marketing industry.

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