"Summer is over."  I think I have heard that statement uttered close to five times in the past week.  As a person who loves the heat and LOATHES the cold, the thought of winter being just around the corner makes me frown a little.  But, it also makes me go through my "winter preparedness" checklist.  Do I need new boots?  How is my winter coat looking?  What is the level of anti-freeze in my car?

 

For those in the retail industry, the end of summer signals the approach of the fourth quarter, the most highly anticipated time of the year.  Hopefully, over the past 8 months, retailers have been building towards the November and December timeframe by putting new triggers in place or making upgrades to their e-commerce platforms.  Those who rely on Q4 for a significant amount of sales need to be at their best from Thanksgiving through New Years.

 

With regards to the email program, retailers should have been optimizing creative, offers, subject lines, calls to action, etc. throughout the early part of the year.  What's that?  You haven't done much testing in the past several months?  Don't fret - there's still a little bit of time.  If you take the next couple of months and follow these easy steps, you should be able to be at your best just in time.  Here's how:

 

1. Start with an objective and strategy

*Example objective: To increase open rate from 20% to 22% within two months

2. Choose a success metric for that objective

*Since we will be altering the subject line, our success metric is the open rate

3. Create a test plan to continually improve that metric

*Start with your control and take the champion vs. challenger approach

*Example: Have you been using a general savings message in your subject line?  Test that general savings message against an element of personalization, like first name or local store (and make sure you test a few times)

4. The winner of the test in #3 becomes your new control - put it up against a different challenger (urgency anyone?) to continually improve your success metric (in this case open rate.)

 

Unfortunately, with Q4 being right around the corner, we don't have the luxury of time to test all elements of an email message.  Choose the factor that you think will move the needle the most for your business and let the optimization begin!  These four steps can be followed for unique click rate just as easily as open rate.  Just make the necessary adjustments to my list above.  And, make sure you start NOW - the closer the holiday season gets the more atypical shopper behvior becomes and the less useful your test results will be. So, embrace the fact that summer's ending and start testing!  

 

Elisa Kleniewski, e-Dialog