Content Marketing Group Therapy: How Minor Design Changes Impacted an eNewsletter

A few weeks ago, I introduced you to Graham Kilshaw from Interference Technology. If you recall, Graham had recently launched an eNewsletter targeted at advertisers and prospects of his publication. He was having some success but he was certain he could improve what he was doing. I shared his story, you shared your suggestions (thank you!), and I promised to keep you updated on his progress so we can all learn from his experience.

Last we left off, Graham had made the big change of focusing the content in each eNewlsetter on one topic instead of six. This way, readers would be better able to see his key point, and it would save Graham a substantial amount of time putting each newsletter together. Results were positive: clicks on the main report increased dramatically and Graham attributes 12 requests for proposals to this new approach.

So, what did the CMI community suggest that Graham do next? Ideas fell into a few categories.

Design:

1. Add some “eye candy” – from Billy Mitchell (@billymitchell1)

2. Have the headline stand out more; the logo and Top News headline are competing for space  –  from Barry Gleeson

3. “Consider moving the ‘Top News’ from what looks like an image to something text based. In this case the image doesn’t gain you much, but using something text based will just look a lot nicer for his audience.” – from Kristina Stiffler (@k_Stiffler)

4. Move the editorial box to the right and include additional “resources” – from Barry Gleeson

5. Add good alt tags to images – from Kristina Stiffler (@k_Stiffler)

Copy:

1. “Headline could do a better job of delivering value” – from Laurie Dunlop (@lauriedunlop)

A/B Testing

1. Add a Twitter handle under Graham’s phone number – from Mark McClure (@samuraiwriter99)

2. Personalize in the subject line or body – from Barry Gleeson

3. Split test subject lines and headlines – from Kristina Stiffler (@k_Stiffler)

4. Test different subject lines – from Amanda Maksymiw (@amandamaksymiw)

Promotion/frequency

1. Review landing page and unsubscribe rates – from Brian Massey (@bmassey)

2. Increase the frequency – from Brian Massey (@bmassey)

3. Consider the mailing list – who is this going to and could there be list fatigue?

For the next issue, Graham decided to tackle the design. He made these changes:

1. Removed the “Top News” headline as this was adding little value, and he wanted to instead promote the headline of the story.

2. Moved the Interference Technology logo to the bottom of the email. Again, the logo was doing little to add value above the fold.

3. Added his picture in the editorial box to provide a personalized touch (For many of Graham’s customers and prospects, they consider him to be the “face” of his company, and for some people he is seen as knowledgeable about building business in this marketplace.) Graham wasn’t sure how much of an impact this would have, so he created two versions and did an A/B test. Version A has his picture at the top, and version B includes it after the story.

We also talked about adding more visual appeal to the EMC Bulletin headline, but Graham decided to leave it as is. His audience is “marketing engineers”, so he wanted the bulletin to have a simple, no-nonsense, non-marketing feel.

(Version A)

(Version B)

Here are the results:

June edition Opens: 1550 Unique Opens: 684 Clicks on Europe Report (the main thing they are trying to drive traffic to): 32 July edition Opens: 943 Unique Opens: 520 Clicks on Europe Report: NA August edition Opens: 1231 Unique Opens: 705 Clicks on Europe Report: 138 September edition Version A: Opens: 574 (33.6%) Unique Opens: 314 (17.9%) Clicks on report: 14 (0.8%) Version B: Opens: 523 (30.5%) Unique Opens: 306 (17.5%) Clicks on report: 24 (1.4%)

While the response rates for both versions were not that different, it was interesting that Version A had a higher open rate whereas Version B has a higher click-though rate on the report.

All in all, Graham is optimistic about the progress. Going forward he feels he can push the click-through rate by not telling the whole story in the Bulletin itself. He has also realized the importance of featuring strong content (in retrospect, he’s not sure if the catalog case study he promoted in the issue was a particularly exciting topic), so this is something he will continue to work on.

Additionally, there were internal issues that delayed this newsletter. His goal is to send the Bulletin twice a month, and once he is able to maintain consistency, it will be interesting to see how the open and click-through rates are impacted.

For the next issue, Graham is planning to A/B different subject lines and headlines. What do you think of that plan? Is there something else you would change or test instead?

#eNewsletter