eBook - Silverpop

If It Ain’t Broke ... Fix It Anyway!
What should I be looking
Q: at in my email program to
make sure it’s keeping up with all
of the changes in the industry?
Most marketers figure everything is
A: working fine if alarm bells don’t go off
every time they send an email campaign. “If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I can’t stand to hear that. It implies that something
is working so well that any attempts to
improve on it aren’t needed and could even
break the process.
I’ve always subscribed to the opposite view, also
espoused in the book If It Ain’t Broke … Break It!:
And Other Unconventional Wisdom for a Changing
Business World, by Robert Krigel.
The “leave it alone” philosophy might have
worked in the business world at one time, but
change happens too fast today. It also flies in
the face of continuous improvement, quality
management and other business philosophies
that have proved their worth.
The last 10 years have brought massive
changes to the email world, thanks
to spam filtering, overflowing
inboxes, mobile devices and
a more sophisticated email
subscriber. What worked a few years ago might
not be irretrievably broken, but it’s probably not
generating the level of returns that it could.
So, it’s time to look at your entire email process
and see what you can “break” or fix to create
emails that are more relevant to subscribers and
deliver a higher ROI for your company.
What You Might Need to Fix
• Opt-in forms: Happy with your opt-in process?
Perhaps it’s time to test a progressive
approach, capturing more data that enables
better targeting.
• Welcome email: You’ve tweaked your HTML
welcome email a few times and are stoked
that it’s driving better initial engagement
than the previous text version IT developed.
However, a two- or three-part welcome series
might more effectively engage subscribers,
leading to higher retention and average
order value.
• Frequency: You’ve doubled your core message
frequency the last few years, which has
driven more revenue, though a much higher
churn rate. Perhaps it’s time to create new
email streams, such as “Clearance,” “Consumer
Reviews” and “Daily Deals.” You can
potentially increase frequency while enabling
subscribers to opt in and out of each email
stream separately.
• Pre-Header “administrative” links: Did you
add those “View Web Version” and “Add to
Address Book” links to the top of your emails
a few years ago? Have you ever analyzed
how many people click on those? At minimum,
perhaps it’s time to move those down
and place your CTA at the top so it’s the first
thing seen.
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