Seed Wars on Ann Street

This post is a testimonial to a number of best practices; the most prominent is that Duncraft has leveraged customer feedback. For the unfamiliar, Duncraft sells bird feeders, seeds, food, houses and baths; their seeds are good – they’ve helped me lure many a cardinal onto my deck. I joked with them about conducting an A:B test, running their seed against a large store brand to see which one wins the “taste test.” Well, now I don't have to…

Their email features a testimonial from one of their customers, someone who used to use the Duncraft seed and had happy, fat (their word not mine), chirpy birds until they switched to a cheaper big store brand of bird seed. A while later, they notice the difference – the birds are gone, those that are left don't seem as happy. So they switch back to Duncraft and offer a fabulous testimonial.

Kudos to the Bird Babe, who runs their email marketing program, she has used a great subject line (also today’s title) to intrigue the reader to open the email. The testimonial is very strong, and flows down to a variety of products that would appeal to birds. Testimonial marketing – where you leverage your user feedback into offers is an excellent way to tell your story. Having a great product of course, lays the foundation for your success.

What is going to make this campaign even better is that the next paper catalog is going to include this exact image and story. Take note eMarketing managers, this is the reversal of roles – email leading print.

Try to see if you can leverage your user’s feedback into your own email marketing campaigns; in the meantime, send your praise to Duncraft by reading their blog or adding your comments below.

Email Attention-Span

The Yogi and I were pondering the concept of an Email Attention-Span yesterday. Our musings applied to the time it took for a recipient to notice your message (that they’ve elected to receive) compared to the amount of time they spend looking at it.

We’ve both seen (and participated in) the eye pattern testing to see where viewers look in a message – and the average amount of time spent. On average you get about four seconds, long enough for their brain to recognize your logo, offer and then a call to action. That’s all you get (assuming an open.)

Now lets compare that four seconds to the length of time it takes for the recipient to pay attention to the messages sent. On average, it takes 4-6 emails to get a customer’s attention. So you may have a lag there between the first message where the recipient actually gives you some time.

These musings made us realize the importance of setting an expectation with your recipients (see Why Sign Up post) as well as your subject line… but more on that later.

How to detirmine the success of an Email Test

We've stressed the need to test subject lines here lately, but what is the key factor in determining which subject line is successful? There are different metrics you can look at, but which will you use? Here is a sample case we can discuss:

We've tried 3 different subject lines here. The first subject had the highest open rate over all. However, the clicks and conversions were pretty low for some reason - perhaps the content didn't live up to the subject line? The next subject line had a lower open rate, but a higher click and conversion rate. Here, maybe the subject wasn't intriguing enough, but when people did open, they liked what they saw enough to buy. The third subject line had the second highest open rate, and blew the roof off with the clicks and conversions.

In this sample case above, subject 3 would definitely be the one to use for the rest of the population, even though it had a lower open rate than the first subject. Even if it had the worst open rate, the conversions and clicks were so compelling, it would have to be declared the winner.

There may be other factors to consider, such as unsubscribe rates, but generally, these are the three key factors in looking at which test was the winner.

Difficult Subjects Part 2: How Do You Think That Up?

So how do you think of those subject lines for email? Do you use the first one that comes to mind? That might be fine, but what if you want to get out side the box? Here are a couple of ways to think of new subject lines.

• Brainstorm - Take 10 or 15 minutes, and just think about the subject line. Take a stroll around the office with a sticky pad and jot down your ideas. Sometimes we put too little thought into the subject, even though that is the first thing the customer sees. This time is well worth it.
• Get other's input - Print out your email creative, and post it next to the office coffee pot, water cooler, whatever. Have people write what they think would be a good subject line on a notepad next to the creative. Sometimes, the best way to think outside the box is to get someone else to think for you.
• Test, Test, Test - Sound familiar? It's because we can't stress it enough. In this case, take 2 or 3 of your favorites from the list of subject lines you've thought of, and then pick 1 or 2 others at random. Test them all to a small group and see what works best.

Difficult Subjects Part 1: Making Your Subject Line Stick Out

Trying to fight for eyeballs is the inbox is a tough task. We're going to write a brief series here on the Email Yogi that will help you improve the effectiveness of your subject lines.

How can you make your subject line stick out from all the other emails in the inbox? Here are a couple of tips:

• Highlight an exclusive offer - Make it seem as though this email contains a special offer that is available only in the email, and no where else. If the customer thinks they're getting something special by looking at the email, they're more likely to open. For instance "Email Exclusive", "Email Only Sale", etc.
• Try different capitalization - Try using subjects with all capital letters so as to stand out, or even take the e.e. cummings route, and try all lowercase letters. These subtle differences will set you apart from other mails in the inbox.
• Test, test, test - Test more than just two different subject lines, test 4 or 5. Let the best one be the one that the majority of your customers see. The results may surprise you.

Tomorrow, we'll share brainstorming ideas on how to come up with different subject lines to test.