Do you like this new CheetahSpots design? Do you remember the old one? It is important to keep your creative fresh and relevant and to evaluate how the response to your campaigns differs when creative elements change. We do a lot of creative testing with our clients across verticals. Our experience has proven that by following these 5 basic steps you can increase response to your emails campaigns. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Review your current creative
Conduct a thorough audit of your current creative. Specifically consider the following:
- What elements are essential to include?
- How do your emails currently render in the preview pane and above-the-fold areas?
- Make sure to categorize the types of messages you are sending (newsletter vs. promotional vs. transactional, etc.). Do you think subscribers can easily distinguish the different message types you’re sending?
- Overall, is the main message well displayed and communicated?
Step 2: Evaluation
Once you have completed Step 1, consider the following:
- If you are sending more than one type of email:
- Does it make sense to test whether you should brand them differently?
- Should the navigation be different?
- Is the content organized to direct subscribers to the main message?
- Is the navigation clear, organized and useful? Could the navigation be consolidated or re-worked based on subscriber click behavior?
- In long emails, can the content be consolidated? Can landing pages be linked to from shorter snippets of content in the email?
- In text heavy emails, can a 20 word sentence be communicated in 10 words?
- Can dynamic content make your newsletter more relevant and/or cut down on the number of versions of your emails?
- Should there be an anchor link system on the template to allow users to click to content that appears further down the page?
It’s also important to evaluate where your subscribers are clicking (and not clicking) on your current emails. If you have any questions on how to obtain this data, please speak with your CheetahMail Account Manager.
Step 3: Creating a winning design
Once you have determined what navigation and content can/should be updated or changed, create a good looking design that complements your brand. To create a good looking email creative that is optimized for maximum deliverability, the following things should be considered:
- Do the main navigation and essential content elements appear above-the-fold and render well in the preview pane?
- Does the design offer multiple calls-to-action to interest users?
- Can your design be realized using basic HTML code?
- Can you employ creative best practices in your new design such as using stacked tables and not colspans and rowspans?
Make sure to ask your CheetahMail Account Manager for a copy of CheetahMail’s Creative Best Practices whitepaper to aid in your development of a good looking and deliverability-optimized template.
Step 4: Test and Measure
Congratulations! Once you have an email with great content wrapped in an engaging visual design, you're almost done. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that your new design will result in increased response rates. Therefore, it is important to test and measure the results of the new design using a systematic methodology:
- Select a statistically significant, random sample of your subscriber base.
- Send the new design to the test group and the old design to the remainder of your file.
- Repeat this test over the course of a few weeks.
- Evaluate your campaign response metrics to determine whether the new creative is as effective as it could be.
- Tweak the creative as necessary.
Step 5: Ongoing Evaluation
Inevitably, your subscribers are receiving higher volumes of email each and every month. We recommend testing updated and refreshed content every six months to maintain subscriber interest. Throughout the lifetime of your new HTML email design, response data will be generated which should be considered feedback from your users on your email’s design. This information is valuable - it will tell you if people are opening your emails more than before, if more traffic is being driven to your website and, more importantly, how readers are interacting with the design. Continuously ask yourself the questions in this article and update your creative as needed... and most importantly, have fun doing it!
For more information on how to create a winning email design, please contact me or a member of your CheetahMail Account Team.
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