special live test clinic: the meclabs team reveals the results of lifeway’s email copy test

Special Live Test Clinic:The MECLABS team reveals the results of LifeWay’s email copy test

Today’s speaker

Flint McGlaughlinManaging Director and CEO, MECLABS Institute @Flintsnotes

Case Study: Background

Background: A Web tool that lets you quickly create and customize Bible studies.

Goal: To increase clickthrough rate.

Research Question: Which email will produce the highest clickthrough rate?

Approach: A/B split test

Brand: SmallGroup.comLocation: MarketingSherpa Research LibraryProtocol ID: Pending


Julie LangmadeManager, Lifeway.com Merchandising Lifeway Christian Resources


• Julie brought an email to Email Summit 2015 to gain live feedback from her peers.

Case Study: Original email

Subject Line:

The fast, free way to create custom

discipleship content.

Campaign Objective:

Increase free trial starts

About the List:

Pastors, small-group leaders, paid church staff in general

Case Study: Original email

Subject Line:

The fast, free way to create custom

discipleship content.

Campaign Objective:

Increase free trial starts

About the List:

Pastors, small-group leaders, paid church staff in general

How would you improve this email?

Audience suggestions

1. “The headline is meaningless … it needs to be in sentence form.”

2. “That image doesn’t give me any context for the content.”

3. “The sub-header is not related to the content.”4. “Strip out that whole last paragraph … it should

just be boiled down to ‘Try the Free Preview.’”5. “Make [the button look] more like a button. It

looks more like a banner.” 6. Change button text to “Learn more”7. Change button text to “Learn about our free

two-week preview”

Case Study: Treatment

• A treatment was created using most of the feedback (but not all of it).• To see the full recording go

to: http://goo.gl/vJSTlt

Case Study: Side-by-sideControl Treatment

Case Study: Results

Email Design Total Click Rate Button Click Rate

Original 0.8% 0.2%

Treatment 1.1% 1.0%

% Relative Change: 42% 358%

Increase in Button Clicks358%The email design that utilized suggestions from the live audience achieved significantly more total clicks and button clicks.

Case Study: Results

Email Design Total Click Rate Button Click Rate

Original 0.8% 0.2%

Treatment 1.1% 1.0%

% Relative Change: 42% 358%

Increase in Button Clicks358%The email design utilizing suggestions from the live audience achieved significantly more total clicks as well as button clicks.

How did we develop a treatment from the live feedback that achieved this result?

Case Study: Results

• Often, we generate unnecessary costs by conflating the objective of an email with the objective of a landing page. The goal of most emails is simply to get a “click.”

• We must challenge our emails with this question: “Is there a single word or piece of content on the page that does not help to achieve a click?” Every unnecessary piece of content is waste and reduces your chance of achieving a click.

Key Principles

Which of these suggestions can help us get the click and which won’t?

1. “The headline is meaningless … it needs to be in sentence form.”2. “That image doesn’t give me any context for the content.”3. “The sub-header is not related to the content.”4. “Strip out that whole last paragraph … it should just be boiled

down to ‘Try the Free Preview.’”5. “Make [the button look] more like a button. It looks more like a

banner.” 6. Change button text to “Learn more”7. Change button text to “Learn about our free two-week preview”

What does this look like when translated into the treatment?

1. The headline is made into a complete, understandable sentence.

2. The image size is reduced and adjusted.3. The sub-header is now more specific to the

content .4. The whole last paragraph is replaced with

relevant bullet points.5. The button is trimmed down and given a drop

shadow so it resembles a button.6. The button copy is changed to a low-

commitment action.

Key lessons learned

• Collaboration is good, but not all feedback is necessarily helpful.

• To ensure that peer review helps achieve your marketing collateral objectives, you must discipline the feedback with a framework/heuristic.• For example: eme = rv (of + i) – (f + a)

• After you’ve applied the framework, you must discipline the analysis with a hypothesis/experimentation cycle, guided by a robust design of experiments.• To learn about “Humanizing Email,” go to: http://goo.gl/RLh8e8

Live optimization

Submitted by:

Andrea H. (Leadables)

Campaign Objective:

Led gen

Live optimization

Submitted by:

Caroline L. (Intersil)

Campaign Objective:

Led gen

Live optimization

Live optimization

Submitted by:

Ana P. (Far & Wide Collective)

Campaign Objective:

Product sales