In this Master Class, I’ve taught you how to …
- Write subject lines that are unique, specific, and helpful to your prospects
- Keep your emails out of the Gmail promotions tab, or worse, the spam folder.
- Construct a high-performing Lead Magnet that works in getting your prospects’ attention, time, and email address.
Before we wrap up, there’s one more thing we have to cover, and that’s testing.
There are A LOT of ways to test, and like developing a lead magnet, these methods are going to differ based on the specific action you are asking your customer to take.
That said, there is a framework to keep in mind for any time you want to test something on the Internet.
Framework for Testing
First is the Hypothesis. You’re going to want to write down somewhere what the thing is that you’re trying to test.
I know. That sounds really basic, and it is. But you wouldn’t believe how often people skip this step. So write down what it is that you want to test.
Then, in your next step, you’re going to want to write down what your specific, quantifiable measurements of success are. In the case of something like a Lead Magnet, you can look at your success rate in getting people’s emails and then from the people who have looked at the lead magnet, the number of inbound business you’ve generated.
For example, at Cirrus Insight, if we offered a lead magnet, the thing we'd look to measure its success is how often it was downloaded, and then how many demo requests came from those who downloaded it. Those are the metrics we would use to determine success.
That’s testing in its most basic form: Did the thing I thought would happen actually happen?
From there, you can get more granular. If we’re sticking to our lead magnet example, you’re going to need a landing page for that lead magnet. (This is especially important because, as we’ve talked about earlier, you never ever want to send someone an attachment by email. Doing so is a guaranteed trip to the Promotions tab, or worse, the spam filter.)
Instead, you’ll want to set up a landing page and include a link to it. (You can also skip this step and upload your landing page to Google Drive and then share the link that way as well, but we don't recommend that for most businesses.)
If you DO make a landing page, now you will want to expand your test by experimenting with the copy. Then the imagery. Then the colors used on your CTA buttons, and then the copy on those buttons themselves.
Make sure you follow that order: Copy. Images. Colors. Then copy again.
The point here is to stop and test out your hypothesis as much as possible. Doing so will increase the probability of your success. 
(That being said, don’t make yourself crazy either. You can use tools like our platform’s Buyer Signals to see what prospect opened your email, which one clicked, and what action they took next. In many cases, that’s more than enough information to gauge your success on.)
Once you’re done testing these elements, you’ll then want to evaluate the data. Sometimes you might find that the thing you thought was true is completely wrong. That doesn’t mean you have made a mistake or anything. This kind of result happens A LOT in the world of testing because, the truth is, people are not always honest about why they do what they do.
What they say they’ll do, and what they actually do are often very different, and that’s why it’s so important to test any piece of content out that you’re sharing with someone.
So remember: Write down the thing you want to test, write the quantifiable measurements you want to use to determine if the thing you’re testing works or not, and then run some experiments. Look at the data, and change course if needed.
How To Run an Email Test
- Establish your criteria for success. In every test, pick one element of your email that you want to measure. For our purposes, we’ve focused our webinar on writing great subject lines that get people to open the email, and then click on the single link you’re sending them. (Remember: One email, One CTA in that email that utilizes one link.) So, you’ll want to test the subject lines, with the first criteria of success being an open rate. Most email service providers have tools that will let you run A/B tests and A/A tests. If you don’t have an email service provider, we recommend using ConvertKit because of the large amount of support and educational material they provide on their platform. ConvertKit is also very helpful and easy to use for building landing pages
- Next, you’ll want to perform what’s called an A/A test. This is when the email you send is exactly the same, but sent to two different groups, with the expectation that they will act on the email as sent without encountering any problems like broken links or bad formatting. (You shouldn’t have to worry about formatting because we suggested you remove the graphics and templates from your email. But this is a good opportunity to see if that one gif you sent is displaying as expected.) If everyone in this group responds in the same way, you’re ready for the next step. If they don’t, look over the email and fix what needs to be fixed.
- Now, we’ll run our A/B test. Here you’re going to test out your top 2-3 subject lines that you generated from the many headlines you generated from the headline writing exercise. You’ll send your email to the two groups, and whichever headline performs the best, that’s the one that you’ll use.
- What’s great about A/B testing is that it allows you to test every element of your email, including the body copy and the copy you use in the single link that you sent. Once you have the performance you are looking for from your test group, now you can feel free to send your fully optimized email to your prospects.
And just like that, we’ve come to the end of this Master Class. In it, I showed you how to gather information on your prospects, where to find great headlines and how to write your own, how to keep the email out of the Promotions Tab, and how to provide (and test) a valuable Lead Magnet that’ll capture the interest of your prospect.
We hope you enjoyed the class.
If you choose to reach out to your prospects using Cirrus Insight and have any questions about how to use our product to help you complete the steps in this course and capture more prospects, please email us at bjmendelson@cirrusinsight.com
And if you aren’t currently using Cirrus Insight, I hope I can convince you to give us a 14 day free trial by visiting CirrusInsight.com.
