The majority of B2B organizations are increasing their marketing budgets for inbound marketing tactics. One of the most popular of those inbound tactics is virtual events and webinars, with 60% of marketers increasing their investment according to the MarketingSherpa 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report.

“It is essential for organizations to gain the trust of their buyers before they can hope to convert them,” said Jen Doyle, the Benchmark Report’s lead author. “Webinars offer an effective platform to improve thought leadership and reputation, both essential components to winning trust. The cost effectiveness of webinars is just the icing on the cake, so many organizations are shifting to include webinars as part of their marketing plans.”

Of course, a webinar isn’t very effective if no one attends. So in today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, Gaby Paez and I will give you some test ideas for those all important webinar invite emails (and if you’d like to see how we craft our own webinar invite emails, just sign up) by reviewing a live optimization submission from The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Gaby is associate director of Research at MECLABS, and you can hear more of her test ideas in the Web clinic replay, Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104%, along with some of the audience’s optimization advice for this submission.

Here’s the submission (and you can view it online as well) …

Click to enlarge

BACKGROUND

Email – Invitation to a paid social media webinar, “Going Mobile: How Nonprofits Succeed,” which features a bonus opportunity to gain access to “an exclusive discussion group” and three speakers:

• Felicia Carr, Senior Director of Online Communications, National Parks Conservation Association
• Jason Wood, Director of Digital Communications Services, Salvation Army National Headquarters
• Cody Switzer, Assistant Web Editor, The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Audience – Nonprofit professionals in fund-raising, marketing, social media and development

Objective – To get registrants for a paid webinar

TEST IDEA #1: Increase the force and clarity of the value proposition

Many webinars are “free.” I put that in quotes because, dear reader, as I’m sure you know … nothing in life is free. Your attendees are actually paying for that “free” webinar with an hour of their time, which, for a busy professional, is a very high price indeed.

This webinar has an extra high bar to cross in that it is, in fact, a paid webinar. So attendees must pay not just with their time, but with their wallet as well. With that in mind, here are a few test suggestions …

Test Suggestion #1: Add a headline. While the body copy is strong in this email, keep in mind that many recipients do not take the time to read every word in every email they receive. You’re lucky to get a quick open and a two-second scan. One possible headline pulled from the email’s body copy and tweaked a little – “Hear what works and learn what to avoid from nonprofit colleagues who are among the first to tap the power of mobile.”

Test Suggestion #2: Increase scanability. While the copy in this email is written quite well, it is mostly a big block of undifferentiated text. To reiterate the point above, very few of your recipients will read your email word-for-word. Maybe your mom will. If you told her you wrote it. And you catch her on a quiet day when her soaps aren’t on. One key test that could help this email decrease friction a lot is increasing scanability by adding bolding, subheads, and/or bullets. “They could add bullet points with questions that the webinar will answer to increase the value of it,” Gaby said.

Not only would this increase the value communicated to the audience, it would decrease the friction the recipient experiences while trying to decipher the value of this webinar. “There is good sequence in the copy, but some of the paragraphs are long. They could test shortening the paragraphs as well,” Gaby advised.

Test Suggestion #3: Drop the call-to-action to the bottom. “The email is asking too much of the recipient at the very beginning – register for a webinar – without giving enough value,” Gaby said. A so-called “best practice” is that it’s always better to put key information above the fold. We’ve discovered, through our testing, that many times placing key information to match the customer’s sequence of thought is more effective than just slapping everything “above the fold.” After all, an email isn’t a newspaper, and really doesn’t have a “fold” anyway.

Test Suggestion #4: Clarify the messaging. You likely understand what you mean by each and every word in each and every email you send. After all, you eat, sleep and breathe your messaging every day. But what about the potential customer who was thinking about 10 other things in his day … and then gets exposed to your message for half a second? Utmost clarify is key. In this case …

“The message is not clear,” Gaby observed. “The banner says ‘Social-Media Webinar,’ but the webinar title is about mobile.”

I’m just guessing here, but they likely can’t change the banner because this is part of a series. However, adding social media references in the title and body copy could help (if it truly reflects the content of the webinar).

TEST IDEA #2: Increase the force and clarity of the incentive

When you use an incentive in your marketing, it can be a double-edge sword. When done well, it can almost be done too well. The incentive can outweigh the value proposition of the product itself to the point that the customer simply refuses to buy without an incentive (for example, GM in the 90s and early 2000s sold more on incentive – cheap financing, cash back – than on the value proposition of its actual product – the cars).

On the flip side, if you offer an incentive that costs your company money but doesn’t have a clear and powerful value proposition to potential customers, all you’ve done is drain your budget without boosting sales.

Test Suggestion #5: Clarify the value proposition of the incentive. In this email, the incentive is a “BONUS OPPORTUNITY.” Attendees receive “access to an exclusive discussion group.” Well, who wouldn’t like to be given a bonus? And other than Groucho Marx, who wouldn’t want to be in an exclusive group?

The only problem is … what does any of that really mean? Marketers have so overused the words “bonus” and “exclusive” they no longer have meaning. “The bonus is not clear. When will the extra session happen and how large are the groups?” Gabby questioned.

I would suggest testing messaging that would quantify the value of this incentive. For example, “Past discussion groups have averaged 60 active, VP-level members from leading nonprofits such as the American Red Cross, the Sierra Club and the United Way.” Now that’s a group even Groucho would like to join.

Bonus Test Suggestion #6: The early bird. For a paid webinar, an excellent incentive is an early bird discount. And in looking at the landing page for this webinar, The Chronicle of Philanthropy did offer one. In fairness to The Chronicle, we don’t know if they sent this email before or after the early bird expired. But we did want to add this test idea in here, as a bonus (see what I did there) for our readers.

TEST IDEA #3: Reduce anxiety

Any time there is a call-to-action, your potential customers have some anxiety about what will happen if they take that action.

In this case, The Chronicle of Philanthropy makes a good use of its presenters to help reduce that anxiety. After all, if professionals from such reputable organizations as the National Parks Conservation Association and the Salvation Army are willing to take the time to speak on this webinar, it must be somewhat legitimate.

There are, however, a few tests The Chronicle could run to help reduce anxiety for its recipients even more …

Test Suggestion #7: List the price. This is a paid webinar, but nowhere in the copy do they mention the price … or even the fact that the recipient will have to pay to attend. This could greatly increase anxiety. Since so many webinars are free, the recipient may click on the “Register Now” button thinking she will get to a signup page for a free webinar, only later to feel duped when she is asked to enter her credit card info and pay $75 or $96 (depending on if she gets the early bird discount).

While this will likely greatly reduce the clickthrough rate for the email, it should also increase conversion on the landing page which, after all, is the overall goal.

Test Suggestion #8: Test the price. How did they determine that $75 or $96 are the optimal prices? Maybe $99 is? Or $100? Or maybe they can increase attendance, overall revenue and brand exposure by dropping the price to $49.

Test Suggestion #9: Clarify PayPal’s relationship. “Why PayPal?” Gaby asked. “What do they have to do with the webinar?”

At first, I thought that PayPal was an option for payment. But after going to the landing page, I did not see that option. It turns out that PayPal is the webinar sponsor. Fair enough. Add the words “Sponsored by:” above the logo to clarify.

In fairness, the webinar platform they used probably did not allow them the opportunity to add those words. It probably only allowed an image upload. In that case, I would add the words in a graphic editing program (such as Photoshop) and save an image (such as a .jpeg or a .png) with those words in there to make the sponsorship relationship clear.

Test Suggestion #10: Add info about the host organization. This last test suggestion depends on which list(s) this email is being sent to. If it is only being sent to a house list, it is probably not necessary. However, if that is not the case …

“Who is The Chronicle of Philanthropy? If this email is sent to rented/purchased lists, it could help to add a brief ‘about The Chronicle of Philanthropy’ section at the bottom,” Gaby suggested.

Related resources:

Our own upcoming (free) webinar – How to Increase Conversion in 2012: The last 20,000 hours of marketing research distilled into 60 minutes

Webinar How To: The 8 roles you need to fill to make your virtual event a success

New to B2B Webinars? Learn 6 steps for creating an effective webinar strategy

Marketing Webinar Optimization: Five questions to ask yourself about webinars

After wrapping our most recent Web clinic, Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104%, our in-house documentarian, Luke Thorpe, and I grabbed lead speaker Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, to discuss a few key takeaways from the Web clinic …

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I asked Flint about:

• Some of the most common mistakes email marketers are making
• Flipping the sales and marketing funnel
• How marketers can optimize the messaging in their emails and improve conversion
• How the audience reacted to the Web clinic

Flint answered by discussing:

• The micro conversions in an email
• How the current funnel-based sales and marketing model is broken
• The micro-decision funnel
• The value exchange fulcrum
• Overcoming assumed value

You can view the full 60-minute Web clinic, including live optimization examples, for free – Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104%

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2012

MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

Email List Hygiene: Remove four kinds of bad addresses to improve deliverability

Email Marketing: Improve conversions with better landing pages

Email Marketing: Increase clicks and conversions with obvious links and consistent messaging

“The goal of an email is to get a click.” –Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO, MECLABS

Editor’s Note: It’s a simple concept and you have likely heard it a lot if you’re a regular MarketingExperiments reader. If you can provide your prospect with enough value to get them to click out of their crowded, highly competitive inbox and onto your landing page, the email has done its job.

Of course, it’s one thing to be able to say what the goal of an email is, and another thing entirely to accomplish it. It takes a lot of experience testing and optimizing emails to develop your own internalized methodology for writing effective email messaging.

To fill that void, Adam Lapp, our Associate Director of Optimization and Strategy, was kind enough to lend us his years of experience in testing and optimizing emails and give us real optimization ideas for a specific audience-submitted email. By observing how Adam looks at a page, we can get a glimpse into the methodology he uses to optimize an email and draw out some transferable principles to apply to our own pages.

The following email was submitted by Zoe. The audience for the email is marketing managers and above. The objective is to introduce clients to the benefits of Data Enhancement through a free, downloadable whitepaper.

Email Sample: 

Click to enlarge

So from here, I’ll let Adam take it away.

4 ideas for getting more clicks in the email:

Overall, this is a relatively good email. There are several things marketers could take away from the email as it is. For example:

• There is a clear problem and solution presented
• The benefits of the solution are clearly articulated
• The whitepaper has an image associated with it to make it feel more robust/tangible
• The side column is used for supporting material
• Personalization is used in the signature

With that said, I came up with a few ideas to increase the performance. Here they are in no particular order:

Idea #1: Add relevance by indicating a prior relationship

First, I would increase this email’s relevance. If the email is to existing clients, then you should mention you have a prior relationship with the recipient.

This immediately orients the recipient and gives them a reason to continue reading.

One way to do that would be a subject line or headline like:

• New information regarding your IBIS account
• New content available in your IBIS file

Idea #2: Use the title area of the email to set expectations

Currently, the title of the email simply explains what IBIS is. No value is communicated. Instead, communicate what’s coming in the body of the email by naming the series of emails.

Some example titles might be:

• IBIS Customer/Subscriber Update
• IBIS Monthly Newsletter
• Free IBIS Whitepaper of the Month

Idea #3: Draw more attention to the button

This idea is a little bit of a no-brainer, but the button could do a better job of standing out and drawing the eye.

As it stands, the gray fill blends in with the white background and the eye skips over it. Use a different color to draw the eye to it.

Idea #4: Promise more value in the button

Once you have their attention with an eye-catching button, get them to click by promising a little more value than “download whitepaper.” While it’s certainly better than “submit” or just “download,” you might draw attention to the fact that there are no form fields to fill out on the other side.

Something like, “Get instant access to the whitepaper” might communicate that idea a little better.

Related Resources:

All-new 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report – Launch Special: Save $100 (offer ends Nov. 30)

Email Copy: Half the words, 16% higher clickthrough rate

Test Your Marketing Intuition: Which email achieved 104% more clicks?

Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104%

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In July, I wrote the blog post, Email Marketing Research: 7 steps for successful email marketing testing and optimization. In it, I discussed how continuous experimentation is the quickest path to peak performance. It enables marketers to go beyond best practices to learn what works for their organization and, more importantly, their customers.

I’m preaching to the choir, right? Well, I also encouraged readers to take the annual email benchmark survey conducted by MarketingExperiments’ sister company, MarketingSherpa.

Thankfully, this blog’s readers, along with more than 2,700 other email marketers, participated in the study. In appreciation, I would like to share with you the current state of email marketing testing practices.

Email testing on the rise

The number of marketers who routinely test email campaigns rose 3% from 2010 to 42%. This is good news as the industry inches closer to making it a prevailing practice.

Unfortunately, nearly six of 10 email marketing budgets do not have any money earmarked for testing and optimization. The majority (63%) of tests are conducted by employees for whom the practice is a part-time and secondary job responsibility, but still a formal part of their job description.

The minority includes the 23% of the email researchers who report the task as their primary focus and full-time duty and the 19% of marketers who perform experiments on the side without it being listed in their job description.

Testing practices most routinely performed

This information may help benchmark your programs and processes against the industry. But for this year’s survey, we wanted to delve deeper into which formal processes and guidelines organizations routinely use to test and optimize email campaigns. Here is a look into what we found.

Chart: More time needed for brainstorming and defining the testing objective

How routinely does your organization implement the following testing practices?

The above chart displays common testing practices in chronological order from top to bottom. We asked marketers to share with us which tasks their organizations routinely execute. The survey uncovered organizations are spending the most time segmenting their lists, understanding the impact of the test on the entire funnel, and documenting their findings.

Segmenting is an effective and common practice

Taking the time to segment a list to target a specific audience is a requirement. Universally testing across the board will muddy the results. The respondents will inevitably give you data that pulls you in all different directions.

MarketingExperiments’ Research Partners have seen tremendous results when focusing on the “highly motivated and loyal subscriber” segment. For example, in a 60-day experiment, the research team discovered increasing from four email messages per month to 15 per month tripled the monthly revenue without any significant negative impact on unsubscribe or open rates.

Marketers often document effect of tests on the funnel

In addition, 43% of marketers in our study routinely document the impact of the test on the Marketing-Sales funnel. This is also a critical step in ensuring you understand the cause and effect of the experiment. A lack of complete information can quickly turn a success into a failure and jeopardize your brand’s success.

More time needed for brainstorming and defining the test objective

Where marketers can devote more time is to brainstorming optimization opportunities, identifying the key metric and reviewing the tests to decide on follow-up actions. Defining the question or key metric and reviewing the test is where the essential learning happens.

Remember the goal of the test is not to get a lift, rather a discovery. After all, if you just “luck into a lift” without knowing why you got it, you can’t replicate that tactic across your campaigns.

To create a solid foundation for a test, marketers must properly identify the research question, key performance indicator and test objective with clarity. To accomplish this step, try adapting the George T. Doran’s business mnemonic device for setting goals – S.M.A.R.T. – to email experiments. Keep in mind your email’s business objectives and how it can translate into a subscriber’s action (i.e., conversion).

Specific – Succinctly state the goal of the test for the entire team to understand. For A/B split tests, most brainstorming session questions start with “what” or “why” and the finished questions begins with the word “which.” Select only one variable or general element to test. Examples include subject line, headline or call-to-action.

Measurable – The element chosen must be one that can be measured, ideally throughout the entire sales process. This may go beyond your email metrics and be extended to website analytics or financial databases. Defining the primary metric that tracks a reader’s action will allow your team to decipher which treatment performed best.

Achievable – The question must be able to be answered based on the segment of the audience you will be testing. This will be determined by the firm’s ability to distinguish customer personas, behavior and sources (e.g., newsletter sign up, current customer, frequent buyer) within its email database.

Relevant – The goal of an email is to earn a click, not a sale. Understanding the placement of the testing objective in the subscriber’s thought sequence will allow you to choose the correct testing element that earns a micro-commitment from the reader, enabling her to move on to the next element of the email. For example, you may choose to test the headline to improve the transition from the “from:” field and subject line to the email body copy.

Timely – When formulating the key question, objective or metric, begin to think about external factors that could impact the testing results. Part of the testing process is to measure the email’s effectiveness at certain time intervals. A holiday or long weekend could influence open rates to the point where a research team may elect to extend the time it collects data.

An adept research question may read, “Which of these three email copy samples will result in the highest shopping basket recovery rate?”

To learn more about email testing and optimization benchmarks, click here to instantly download MarketingSherpa’s free 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report excerpt.

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report – Launch Special: Save $100 (Offer ends Nov. 30)

Email Marketing Optimization: How you can create a testing environment to improve your email results

Email Marketing: Testing subject lines

Email marketing has come a long way since the early days before CAN-SPAM laws and double opt-in email lists. Back then, it was easy to build a list and quickly get them to your offer pages. The average email recipient wasn’t bombarded with dozens, or even hundreds, of messages every day that need sorted or deleted.

Now, with email users being incredibly wary of any promotional email, most of the email we send gets deleted.

How do we ensure our emails get read and acted upon by the people on our list who need what we have to offer?

It essentially comes down to email messaging. If you can clearly communicate enough of your offer’s value in your email to earn a click, then you’ll more than likely see a significant increase in clickthrough (and ultimately profit).

We recently ran an email test for a research partner (anonymized in the emails) that needed to increase their number of leads from a rented list. One of the email treatments generated a 104% increase in clicks over the other. Here are the treatments:

Email A:

Email B:

Which Treatment Received 104% more clicks?

Go ahead and study the two email treatments and let us know in the comments which email you think performed the best and why. We’ll choose three of the respondents who we think were closest in the “why” department and recognize them as marketing experts on the blog.

UPDATE: The results are in

As unanimously voted on in the comments, version B was the victor in this case. The 104% lift was most likely due to the clarifying of the derivative value proposition, less commitment in the CTA, and the control and flow of the thought sequence through the email. Thanks to all our brilliant commenters who got it right. And a special congratulations to those 3 marketing experts who (in our opinion) gave the best reasons why email B outperformed email A:

• Chris Allsop
• @AaronMandelbaum
• Susan Corleto

Related Resources:

Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104% - Today’s Web clinic from 4:00-5:00pm EDT

Test Your Marketing Intuition: Which landing page achieved a higher conversion rate?

Marketing Intuition (Contest): Which homepage generated more conversions?

Marketing Intuition (Contest): Which email is more engaging?

“No one wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I sure hope I get a lot of great email marketing messages today.’” This was one of  Dr. Flint McGlaughlin’s more clever quips at our recent B2B Summit.

And it hits close to home, because we all know how hard it is to get attention in those crowded inboxes, where your recipients are quickly sorting through messages mostly focused on deleting and unsubscribing, not diligently reading every word of your marketing messages.

This Wednesday at 4 p.m., Flint, our managing director, will share some of our discoveries about increasing response to email marketing promotions and campaigns in our next free Web clinic – Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104%.

But first, we wanted to hear your peers’ top tips for increasing the effectiveness of email messaging. Here are a few of our favorite responses …

Compelling, simple and educational

Three factors to consider for your email marketing:

Compelling, funny subject lines. Yelp and Brazen Careerist do a particularly great job of this. Yelp goes for humor or fun references, for example: “Your heartbreaking work of staggering genius.”

Brazen Careerist tempts you by telling you they have information that you want, for example “Here’s one simple way to get ahead at work.” Then they follow through and actually deliver that information.

KISS – keep it simple, stupid. I love clean, minimalistic email creative. I hate when there are too many images or messages competing for my attention.

Deliver educational content. Don’t just promote your products or services. Deliver interesting facts, perspectives or case studies that your target audience would be interested in knowing.

– Shreya Oswal, marketing associate, LinkedIn

From headlines to offers

Headlines – On average, 70% of people trash emails based upon the headline alone. … How often does one stand out from the crowd? Answer: rarely. It’s pivotal to avoid all language associated with sales and marketing and to implement new, catchy subjects.

Personalization – Unfortunately, this depends on the level of your data, but it really is key to getting people to open the mail. If it isn’t directly associated with my work or personal interests, I will not read the email.

It amazes me how many people don’t even target marketing based on location. I get so many emails about “events in Singapore,” “money off in New York” – I live in the UK! Don’t waste my time.

And to be honest, if your data doesn’t have the level of detail required, you really need to hire somebody in to tidy up your database and get you the information you need. I labeled this as “personalization” but it directly links with “targeted marketing.”

Colour – The simplest way to catch my attention is to make something boldly stand out from the normal sea of black and grey.

Offers – In the current financial state, the easiest way to get someone interested is to offer money off, free gifts, etc. – an incentive to fork out money for your product or event.

Above all else though, I come back to my earlier point – create a new language, no marketing or sales pitches/terminology, none of the usual “catchphrases.” Do something completely radical and different with your approach – it’s the easiest way to stand out amongst the mass of trash emails that we receive every day.

– Sophie Danby, global operations manager, Ovum

5 factors for effective email messaging

My suggestions for email messaging:

Personalize – This does not mean just using mail merge to say “Hi [Name].” The selection of recipients has to be done in such a way that the message is relevant to the person’s business or personal interests.

Also, the message should be composed in a person-to-person tone. It’s an email, not a bulletin board. I would also strongly advise signing off as a person and not as “The XYZ Team.”

Frequency – Depending upon the nature of the message, there is always an ideal frequency of sending-out the mails, beyond which you are spamming your recipients with “too many of those.” Even if people subscribe to your newsletter (permitting you to send them emails), you don’t want to annoy them with overloads of anything. A monthly newsletter is ideal and is sure to be read by most recipients.

Timing – Remember how you waited for the right time to ask your dad to sign your bad grade-sheets as a kid (or ask him to buy you a PlayStation – whatever suits you)? Send the emails at a time when your recipients are expected to be in the mood to read them so as to maximize your chances of best responses. I tend to trash more mail on Monday mornings as compared to a Wednesday evening, for instance.

Engagement – Even though automated responses are instant, most people expect someone human to reply to them, and they would be willing to wait a few hours for that “real” response from you. Email is not a one-time or one-way message. It is a conversation. So start engaging with people and have someone responding to email personally.

Content – Apart from the obvious personalization of the content, you need to assure that the mail is elegantly designed and formatted in a way that is pleasant to read. (I believe most people hate Comic Sans, rainbow colors or 30px of type.)

Another very important thing to keep in mind is that the message should be clear with “Images OFF” so that you don’t miss on that tiny audience of people who have images blocked while viewing your mail.

Also, ensure proper hyperlinking and anchor-linking to make things convenient for your audience. (Even copy-pasting URLs is a pain for most people, trust me.)

Lastly, your signature should give them a clear idea of who they have been conversing with because not everyone is adventurous enough to love talking to ghosts.

– Nivesh Jain, social media executive, Invensis Technologies

Related Resources:

Email Messaging: How overcoming 3 common errors increased clickthrough 104% — Wednesday, November 9^th, 4:00-5:00 p.m. EDT

Email Marketing Optimization: Email messaging 101

Ten Numbers Every Email Marketer Should Commit to Memory

Crafting an Engaging Email Message — Web clinic replay

Email Marketing Toolkit