Bertha's Blog: Four Simple Marketing Automation Tricks You Can Put to Use Right Away

Okay, you’re all set up and ready to go with your next marketing automation campaign. That’s great. But now that you’re off to the races, you’ll want to start optimizing your campaigns. In other words, you’ll want to start testing different techniques to see which ones improve your open rate, your click through rate, and your return on investment.

What’s the best way to do that? That’s a great question – and here are the answers, the simple marketing automation tricks you can start using almost immediately.

Personalize your campaigns based on geography

Studies show that the more personalized your campaign, the higher your click through rate. Most campaigns are personalized by using the subscriber’s name somewhere in the text. That’s a great approach and we’ll discuss ways to do that in the next section of this post.

In the meantime, you should consider personalizing a campaign based on geography. What do I mean by that? Here’s an example – let’s say you have an e-newsletter that’s read by people around the globe. The first line of the newsletter might say, “Consumers around the globe respond well to marketing campaigns that use humor.”

But what if you ran a test for people in the U.K. that said, “Consumers in the U.K. respond well to marketing campaigns that use humor. As someone who lives in the U.K., do you agree? Or disagree?”

That approach – identifying their location in the body of the email – is a great way to use geography as a personalization tool.

Give it a try. And be sure to track your results. By doing so, you’ll be well on your way to optimizing your campaign to reach peak performance.

Use the subscriber’s name in the subject line

It’s pretty common to use a subscriber’s name in the body of your email. In fact, the vast majority of marketing automation emails use this technique. But have you tried using the subscriber’s name in the subject line? I have, and it increases my click through rates by 20% or more.

Give it a try. But a word of caution – if you use this technique every time you send out an email, it will lose its effectiveness. I save this technique for campaigns that are particularly important. That way, I keep the impact high instead of watering it down.

marketing automation tricks

Only test one thing at a time

Because marketing automation provides you the opportunity to test so many different variables, it’s tempting to try to test a variety of things all at once. Technically, you can test more than one variable at a time using something called multivariate testing, but most people like to test one thing at a time using a simple A/B split test.

The more focused your A/B test, the more reliable the results. In other words, rather than changing an entire headline, just change one word in the headline. Or, rather than changing an entire paragraph of copy, try changing one sentence in the paragraph.

The fewer items you test – and the more focused your test – the more accurate your test will be and the better results you’ll have moving forward.

Reference a span of time in your autoresponders

Okay, here’s one that’s kind of interesting. A lot of businesses use autoresponders to greet new subscribers. In other words, new subscribers will receive a pre-planned email 2 weeks after subscribing, 4 weeks after subscribing and 6 weeks after subscribing. It’s a pretty common approach.

Here’s the trick – by referencing the amount of time that has passed since people initially subscribed, you make the autoresponder sound more customized and real.

As an example, when the 2 week autoresponder is deployed, you would write an introductory line that says “Hi (Name) – We’re glad you signed up for our e-newsletter a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how fast 2 weeks can fly by, right?”

That simple technique – referencing a span of time in the autoresponder – makes the recipient feel as though they’re getting a more customized experience.

Putting it all into action

Those are just a handful of the techniques we wanted to talk with you about today. There are plenty of other tips that we’ll share with you in the future. In the meantime, I have one last piece of advice for you – none of these tips will do you any good unless you actually put them into action.

So, re-read the tips mentioned above and commit to trying at least one of them out on your next campaign. By doing so, you’ll be sure that you’re getting everything you deserve from your marketing automation platform.